His father Mykola Verner-Petriv, was a Swede and a high-ranking officer in the Imperial Russian Army.

[1] Petriv entered the war as a member of the Russian Imperial Army at the 42nd Infantry Division, later joined the 7th Turkestani Rifle Division and rose in the ranks to colonel and head of staff.

With the fall of the Directorate in November 1920 he went abroad to Poland were in 1921 he was assigned to the post of the Head of the Staff of the Ukrainian National Republic Army.

He was a very prolific writer, authoring no less than nine in-depth books about Ukrainian military history.

In April 1939 he was arrested and transferred to Brno where he worked at the local factory.