Seconded to the army during the Winter War and decorated for his actions, Yenshin graduated from an NKVD school and taught at the latter until the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.

Postwar, he commanded a succession of divisions and a corps, finishing his career in 1958 as head of the combat training department of the Soviet Airborne Troops.

Yenshin served with the Sebezh Special OGPU Border Detachment as a junior supervisor at a checkpoint and as an assistant official for anti-smuggling duty.

[3] In Central Asia Yenshin participated in the suppression of the bands of Gapan-Yak-Mamed and Basmachi in Khalach and Khodzhambas Districts of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic.

He studied at the Order of Lenin Higher NKVD School in Moscow from October 1939, but was seconded to the Northwestern Front in December, with which he fought in the Winter War as commander of the 2nd Border Regiment of the 9th Army in the Kandalaksha sector.

[2][3] After the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Yenshin was appointed commander of the 268th Rifle Division in July with the rank of major general.

With the army, the division was transferred to Yelets between 8 and 15 February, and within twenty days of its arrival the 140th made a 450-kilometer march to concentrate near Khorlanovo and Trofimovka under winter conditions.

[2] Upon his recovery, Yenshin was appointed commander of the 307th Rifle Division, leading it during the Battle of Kursk, in which the 307th fought as part of the 13th Army of the Central Front from 5 July, repulsing six days of German attacks in the Ponyri sector.

42nd Rifle Corps commander Major General Konstantin Kolganov described Yenshin's "skilled and firm leadership" of the division as integral to the crossing of the Desna by improvised rafts under German fire and its capture of Novozybkov.

[4] The 307th was withdrawn to the second echelon of the army on 29 April, and on 26 June Yenshin transferred to command the 362nd Rifle Division, which he led for the rest of the war.

It spent February and March fighting to hold the latter, and Yenshin was made a Hero of the Soviet Union and awarded the Order of Lenin on 6 April 1945 in recognition of his leadership.

He graduated from the correspondence department of the Frunze Academy in 1953, and from September of the later year served as commander of the 8th Guards Airborne Corps, being promoted to lieutenant general in 1955.

Yenshin served as assistant commander and head of the combat training department of the Soviet Airborne Troops from August 1956, his last post before retirement on 2 December 1958.