[3] Professor Nikolaenko graduated from the Agricultural Academy of the Ukrainian SSR becoming a mechanical engineer (1978) and engineer-educator (1980).

In 2008 a group of SPU members including Nikolaenko and Aleksander Baranivskiy founded the "Union for Renewal of Socialist Party of Ukraine" and proposed 10 steps to return into "big policy" stated in the program "A Just Ukraine" to SPU leader Oleksander Moroz.

[2] Nikolaenko participated in 2012 parliamentarian elections and got the third place in electoral district 185 with 16.18% (14 808 popular votes)[4][1] and thus no seat in the Verkhovna Rada.

In June 2014 Nikolaenko was appointed Acting Rector of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine.

[6][7] Former rector Dmytro Melnychyk disagreed with the appointment of Nikolaenko and sought support at Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food (Ukraine).