Born in 1922, Kirpichenko initially trained to be a pilot, but with the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, he enlisted in the Red Army and served in Eastern and Central Europe during the closing stages of the war.

He passed information back to Moscow during the Suez Crisis in 1956, and worked to establish diplomatic relations with Yemen, before being recalled to the USSR in 1960.

He returned to overseas postings in 1962 as resident in Tunisia, with a further period in the USSR between 1964 and 1970, serving as head of the African Department of the First Chief Directorate from 1967.

He warned Moscow that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was planning to reorient his foreign policy away from the Soviet Union and towards the USA.

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kirpichenko became head of a group of consultants under the director of one of the KGB's successors, the Foreign Intelligence Service.

4 Air Force Special School, which provided primary flight training alongside the usual secondary education.

[3] He joined the 103rd Guards Rifle Division in January 1945, seeing action in the closing stages of the war, in Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia, and at the Balaton Defensive Operation in March that year.

[1][2][3] With the completion of his studies in July 1953, he joined the Eastern Department of the KGB's First Chief Directorate, which was responsible for foreign operations and intelligence activities.

[2][3] On his arrival in Egypt he found that he was not familiar with the local dialect, and spent the next one and a half years in intensive language study alongside his intelligence duties.

[4] His arrival coincided with the early period of Gamal Abdel Nasser's rule, with the Soviet authorities particularly concerned about the new government's stance towards the Western powers, and its intentions in the Arab world.

[6] Despite not having informed Moscow of their intentions, Kirpichenko reported that the general feeling among Egyptians was that the Soviet Union should come to their aid once fighting began.

[7] Kirpichenko returned to the Soviet Union in 1960 and spent two years working with the KGB's central organisation, before moving to Tunisia as resident in February 1962.

[2][8] He was in post during the Yom Kippur War between Egypt and Israel in 1973, and subsequently warned Soviet leaders that Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was planning to reorient Egyptian foreign policy away from the Soviet Union and towards the United States, having learnt that Sadat had been in secret communication with US President Richard Nixon.

[1][4][10] He took charge of the intelligence officials in the country in preparation for Operation Storm-333, the ousting of Amin and the installation of Babrak Karmal as Chairman of the Presidium of the Revolutionary Council.

[2] In June 1991 Kirpichenko warned against the effects of Glasnost, which he claimed were making it easier for foreign intelligence agents to work successfully in the USSR.

[1] He retired from this in 1997, and began working with a number of authors as assistant editor-in-chief to compile a six-volume Essays on the History of Russian Intelligence.

[1] He lectured widely on this topic, in the US, UK, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Malta, South Korea and France, and attended numerous international conferences and seminars on the history of intelligence.

[1][2] His wife, Valeriya Nikolaevna, was a philologist and specialist in Arabic literature with the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences.