After graduation he was assigned to command a rifle platoon in September 1957, beginning his active service in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.

[3] Graduating from the General Staff Academy in 1977, Burlakov took command of the 31st Army Corps of the Transcaucasian Military District at Kutaisi.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev appointed him to the position at the recommendation of Yazov, who approved of Burlakov's handling of the withdrawal from Hungary.

In contrast, Burlakov's WGF staff completed a plan for the withdrawal and presented it to the German liaison team for treaty implementation under a month after the change of command.

[5] During the August coup later in 1991, Burlakov personally assured the Brandenburg prime minister Manfred Stolpe that the withdrawal would continue in accordance with treaty obligations.

Burlakov insisted publicly that "many of the cleanest areas in East Germany today are to be found on the military training grounds of the WGF" and had Russian-language copies of a NATO environmental education film distributed to WGF troops, but these measures proved ineffective at changing the situation of environmental neglect that prevailed at former Soviet military bases in East Germany.

The environmental situation was settled when Yeltsin and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl agreed to renounce both side's claims in December 1992.

[9] In this position Burlakov repeatedly was at the center of media attention due to scandalous revelations of wide-ranging corruption and theft of state property in the WGF.