He served as spymaster and head of the KGB stations in the United Kingdom and Denmark during the Cold War.

Two years later, Lyubimov went to the United Kingdom, where he worked in the Soviet residency in London as Second Secretary of the Embassy as an ordinary field officer.

[3] Lyubimov worked under the guise of being the press attaché, allowing him to associate socially with the British elite and political officials.

In 1964, Lyubimov's cover was blown in a failed attempt to recruit a cipher machine operator to spy for the Soviets.

Lyubimov's first book was The Life and Adventures of Alex Wilkie, Spy in 1989, about a Russian agent in London trying to find a mole leaking intelligence to the Americans.