He fled to Norway together with his superior Yevgeny Miller in 1920 and lived as a cab driver and labourer at a brewery at Lillehammer until his death three years later.

He obtained his education at the third Alexandrov's Institute, graduating in 1885 as an infantry officer and soon enrolling into the Nikolayev Academy of General Staff which he finished in 1891.

On April 3, 1917 he was appointed as the commander of the 3rd Army which was at the left wing of the Western front covering the Polotsk direction.

Later Kvetsinsky was requested to resign, yet remained the chief of staff until the evacuation of the White Russian forces in February 1920.

He emigrated to Tromsø, Norway along with the rest of the Miller's government officials on ice-breaker Kuzma Minin.

His son Wassily von Kwetzinsky who was a captain in the Russian Army enrolled into the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim, and later become a noted music critic.

After couple of years Kvetsinsky became sick and was put into a local Red Cross hospital where he died after several months on March 31, 1923.