At the 2003 World Youth Championships in Athletics he cleared a personal best of 5.10 m to take the silver medal behind Argentina's Germán Chiaraviglio.

Later that year he competed outdoors, finishing tenth in the qualifiers at the 2006 European Athletics Championships then ninth at the 2006 IAAF World Cup.

He equalled his personal best to make the final at the 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships, but managed only 5.41 m in the last round to finish sixth overall.

This was enough to make the Russian Olympic team for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and he reached his first major senior final, finishing in fifth place with a vault of 5.70 m.[4] He cleared 5.70 m both indoors and outdoors in 2009, but his sole international competition was the 2009 European Athletics Indoor Championships where he failed to reach the final.

At the end of 2011 he showed the results of his improved physical conditioning with two clearances of 5.90 m in Chelyabinsk – a mark which raised him into the top twenty pole vaulters of all time.