[5] From 1932 to 1943, Dollezhal worked with Soviet bureaucracy, serving their chief design engineer, and oversaw many of the nitrogen production factories in Russia and Ukraine, and filled positions by hiring graduates of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute.

: 24 [4] Dollezhal supported the Soviet program and designed the first reactors (based on American designs), graphite moderated types A and AI, that produced plutonium used in Joe 1 nuclear test of 1949 and subsequent nuclear weapons deployment.

His first proposal, Type AM, was not practical for marine uses but became the core of the first nuclear power plant in Obninsk, commissioned in 1954.

Dollezhal pioneered the concept of the pressurized water reactor, which led to numerous military and VVER-type civilian designs.

In 1957 Dollezhal Institute launched their first dual-use (civilian energy and weapons-grade plutonium) powerplant, Type EI, and seven years later, the first truly industrial Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Station.