[1] Yevdokimov was born in 1804 in the stanitsa (Cossack settlement) of Naurskaya (in modern-day Chechnya) in the Georgiyevsky Uyezd of the Caucasus Governorate.

[2] His father was of peasant origin and served in the army as an ordnance technician and achieved the rank of second lieutenant (podporuchik).

He entered military service in 1821 and until 1834 served in the Tenginsky and Kurinsky (from 1824) infantry regiments of the Separate Caucasian Corps.

In 1831, he fought with distinction in a battle against the forces of the Dagestani imam Ghazi Muhammad near the settlement of Tarki.

During the battle, he was wounded by a bullet that passed through his head, for which he received the nickname Uch-gyoz, which means 'three-eyed' in Turkic.

In 1851, he defeated Shamil's deputy in the Northwest Caucasus, Muhammad Amin, and moved the line of fortifications up to the Belaya River.

[2] Yevdokimov put forward the plan to remove the Circassians from their highland homeland and force them either to settle in the mainly uninhabitable swamps in the lowlands or emigrate to Turkey.

[7] The number of Circassians who died during Yevdokimov’s deportation operations is not known with certainty but modern scholarly estimates vary between 625,000 and 1,500,000.

[8] There is clear evidence that Yevdokimov was aware of the level of fatalities caused by the deportations but continued anyway; according to historian Walter Richmond, "At the very least Yevdokimov and the military personnel involved in the deportation could be considered guilty of genocide as defined under Point (c) of the United Nations Convention.