[2] From 1939 he attended Alma Ata State Law Institute, today part of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, and graduated in 1942.
[2] He joined the Communist Party in 1942 and from August 1942 he began to serve as the secretary of the Aktobe regional committee of the Komsomol.
[4] He was the minister of internal affairs of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the period between 25 July 1961 and 17 September 1966.
[2] He was appointed Soviet ambassador to the Republic of Upper Volta on 21 March 1974, replacing Yakov Lazarev in the post.
[3] Tikunov died on 16 July 1980 while serving as the Soviet ambassador in Yaoundé, Cameroon, and was buried in Moscow at the Kuntsevo cemetery.