Born into a working-class family which suffered hardships during the 1930s, Moskvitelev volunteered for service at the front during the Second World War, but was instead posted to pilot training.

The war ended before he could see combat, but he remained in the armed forces, being assigned to Soviet Naval Aviation with the Baltic Fleet.

By 1960 naval aviation units were being phased into the Air Defence Armies, and Moskvitelev's regiment was assessed by three times Hero of the Soviet Union Alexander Pokryshkin prior to being transferred.

Moskvitelev was born into a working-class family on 27 July 1926 in Vyazovy Gai, then part of Nikolayevsky Uyezd, Samara Governorate, in the Russian SFSR, USSR.

Moskvitelev's mother died in 1938, while his father took employment as a mechanic at a machine tractor station, but still struggled to make a living wage.

[2] After the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, embroiling the USSR in the Second World War, and reaching the age for service in 1943, Moskvitelev appeared before the authorities and requested a posting to the front.

[2][3] The war ended before he could fly in combat, and his graduation was deferred while the cadets were tasked with helping rebuild the damaged city of Yeysk.

[1][2] Moskvitelev's first assignment was to the fighter aviation regiment of the 4th Baltic Fleet Air Force, based at Mamonovo, near Kaliningrad.

[2] In 1953 Moskvitelev left Yeysk for an assignment in Riga as part of the Special Naval Aviation Training Regiment under Lieutenant Colonel I. M. Lukin.

[3] This was followed in April 1958 with the position of commander of the 62nd Fighter Aviation Regiment in the fleet's air force, and the award of the Order of the Red Banner that year.

[2][4] In 1960 the fleet's naval aviation began to be phased out as part of a restructuring, with personnel and equipment transferred to the Air Defence armies.

Moskvitelev was given command of three regular aviation regiments and flew with them to Czechoslovakia to carry out combat missions in support of the interventionist forces.

[1][2][4] From March 1987 he served as the representative to the Headquarters of the Allied Forces of the Warsaw Pact countries, under Wolfgang Reinhold of the GDR's Kommando LSK/LV, until his retirement in 1990.

[4] He maintained an interest in technical developments, becoming a candidate of Sciences in 1984, and had also co-authored the university textbook ""Applied Methods of Comparative Assessment and Combat Potential of Aviation Military Equipment".