Sakharov was a graduate of the Nicholas Academy of the General Staff and served in the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878).

Sakharov remained in St Petersburg throughout the war, and had little influence on the strategy or tactics of the conflict.

He was dismissed from this post by Tsar Nicholas II on 21 June 1905 and replaced by Lieutenant General Aleksandr Rediger on 4 July 1905.

On 22 November 1905, he was mortally shot by the SR woman terrorist Anastasia Bitsenko in the house of the Saratov governor Pyotr Stolypin.

His brother Vladimir Viktorovich Sakharov was also a general in the Imperial Russian Army.