On 31 January 1879, Sakharov took up duties as the clerk of the educational section of the Riga Infantry Junker School.

On 4 November 1880 he became assistant class inspector of the 2nd Military Konstantinovsky School, and he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 12 April 1881.

On 30 June 1882 he began duty as director of affairs in the educational section of the Officer Cavalry School and received a promotion to colonel on 8 April 1884.

He was promoted to major general on 12 November 1897 and appointed to the post of chief of staff of the 5th Army Corps.

[2] He was promoted to lieutenant general “for military distinction” on 31 January 1901,[3] and from 16 February to 7 May 1901 was the head of the Zaamur District of the Border Guard.

On 5 April 1904, he became had of the field headquarters of the 1st Manchurian Army, participating in the Battle of Shaho in October 1904.

On 18 October 1904, he became chief of staff to the commander-in-chief of all land and naval forces operating against Japan, General Aleksey Kuropatkin.

He performed those duties until 17 March 1905, and was awarded the Golden Weapon for Bravery with Diamonds on 26 November 1904.

From 3 January to 21 April 1906, Sakharov was at the service of the commander-in-chief of all land and naval forces in the Far East.

He remained in active duty in the new Russian Army, continuing only as a member of the Alexander Committee on the Wounded, on which he had served since September 1915.

After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution on 7 November 1917 and the Russian Civil War broke out, Sakharov was dismissed from the army.