He graduated from the Kharkov Higher Military Aviation School in 1963 and the Gagarin Air Force Academy in 1969.

[3] Around the end of January 1992, the Ministry of Defense of the disintegrated USSR began to de facto call itself the main command of the CIS Armed Forces.

[4] In the Decree of the President of Russia of 4 January 1992, Marshal Shaposhnikov was mentioned as the head of the Ministry of Defense of the former USSR.

In January 1994, Shaposhnikov became a representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the main arms-exporting company Rosvooruzhenie.

He has been employed as an adviser of the President of the Russian Federation on matters of aviation and space exploration since March 1997.