Fadeyev, the youngest of seven children, was born on 10 April 1937 in Shimanovsk, Amur Oblast, to Matvey Yakovlevich and Yekaterina Ivanovna.

[6] Fadeyev headed the October Railway in Leningrad from March 1984 to August 1987, and was elected to Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in February 1985.

[6] He was deputy minister, head of the Main Traffic Directorate, and a member of the Board of the Ministry of Railways of the Soviet Union from August 1987 to 1988.

An agreement allocating rolling freight stock among the CIS and Baltic countries, developed with Fadeyev's participation, was signed in Minsk on 22 January 1993.

The Tariff Agreement for Railway Carriers of the CIS Countries was signed in February 1993, facilitating long-term contracts for international traffic.

[14] In August 1996, after the re-election of Boris Yeltsin, Fadeyev resigned as minister and was elected Secretary General of the International Coordinating Council for Trans-Siberian Transportation.

The Accounts Chamber and the Prosecutor General's Office carried out large-scale inspections which revealed serious violations, resulting in a criminal case against Aksyonenko.

[19][20] The Russian rail industry was in a management crisis, with large federal and regional debts; over 300 criminal cases were initiated.

Fadeyev learned that under Aksyonenko, large private mining companies were secretly using government funds to build railway approaches to promising coal and iron-ore deposits.

The first cost-effective, deficit-free financial plan, which included state support for unprofitable passenger traffic, was formulated under Fadeyev in 2003.

Preparations were made to separate state regulation from economic activity, leading to the creation of state-owned Russian Railways (headed by Fadeyev) at the end of 2003.

[23][24] After a steep price increase by Riga Carriage Works, production of Russian electric trains began at the Demikhov Machine-Building Plant and Fadeyev instituted economic reforms.

[27] Under his tenure, the BAM's Severomuysky Tunnel was completed; the Sakhalin conversion from narrow to broad gauge began; strategic lines, including the Trans-Siberian Railway and the route to China, were electrified.

[33] Fadeyev repeatedly advised President Vladimir Putin that the state should retain control of the railway industry and considered it as one of the three pillars of Russian statehood, with energy and a strong army.

"The directorates of the central level of Russian Railways are not capable of making prompt decisions in connection with the real situation in a particular region.

A situation has arisen where the 'tops' do not see all the real problems, and the 'bottoms' cannot solve them due to the lack of the necessary resources", he said in an April 2016 article in the main Russian Railways newspaper.

Fadeyev also enjoys tennis, cycles in Meshchyorsky National Park, and rides 15–25 km daily on an exercise bike.