After graduating from the Frunze Military Academy in 1990, Popov served as chief of staff - a deputy commander of the civil defense regiment of the Central Asian Military District from 1990 to 1993, a commander of the 493rd separate mechanized civil defense regiment from 1993 to 1996, and had been the First Deputy Head of the East Siberian Regional Center of the EMERCOM of Russia.

In these positions, he directly supervised the rescue operations at the crash site of the A-310 airbus near the city of Mezhdurechensk in Kemerovo Oblast on 23 March 1994, the liquidation of the consequences of the earthquake on the Kuril Islands in 1994, and the Il-76 transport plane crash in the suburb of Abakan in 1996.

Under his leadership, the delivery of humanitarian cargo and construction materials to the flood-affected city of Lensk in 2001, the extinguishing of large forest fires in Chita Oblast in 2003, and the elimination of the consequences of the earthquake in the Altai Republic in 2003, as well as other emergencies were carried out.

In 2004, he was appointed head of the Civil Protection Academy of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and held this position until 2008.

[7] He is one of the developers of the concept for a multi-level system of permanently operating Russian Defense Control Centers.