He was the commanding officer of the Russian submarine Kursk when the vessel suffered a series of explosions and sank on 12 August 2000.

He entered the Navy in 1972 and graduated from the Higher Naval School of Submarine Navigation named for Lenin Komsomol in 1977 and was commissioned as an officer.

He served as a weapons officer aboard the diesel-electric Juliett class cruise missile submarine K-58.

In April 1991, he was appointed executive officer of a nuclear submarine, the Project 949A Antey class (NATO reporting name Oscar-II) K-119 Voronezh and served aboard through 1996.

He and the newly formed crew spent the time between September 1991 and March 1993 undergoing training in Obninsk.