In 1970 he graduated from the Tashkent Higher Military Command School with honors, then served in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany in Wurzen.

In June 1983 he was removed from this position after a failed operation and appointed deputy commander of the 191st Motor Rifle Regiment in Ghazni.

In early 1990 the division was transferred to the Soviet Border Troops of the KGB, and Rokhlin was promoted to major general in February of the same year.

He refused to accept the state's highest medal and the title of Hero of the Russian Federation for leading the Grozny offensive,[6] saying "It's immoral to seek glory in a civil war for commanders.

[4] After he retired in 1995, Rokhlin was elected to the Duma (Russian parliament) as a member of the pro-Boris Yeltsin party Our Home – Russia, from which he later resigned.

Rokhlin chaired the Duma's Defense Committee until President Yeltsin made an agreement with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation to strip him of the post.

[4][7] On 4 July 1998, a few months after he tried to stage an anti-government mass protest by army servicemen, Lev Rokhlin was killed in his bed by a gunshot to the head.

[10][11] According to Alexander Litvinenko (assassinated 2006), former KGB and FSB general Anatoly Trofimov (shot dead in 2005) told him that the murder appeared to be organized by Russian secret services.