Bukreyev was born in the village of Vtoraya Alekseyevka in Kursk Oblast, Russian SFSR.

The German invasion of the Soviet Union began shortly after that and his family fled the occupation by moving to the Voronezh Oblast.

[1] Bukreyev entered the Soviet Army in 1960 and began serving as a private in a training tank regiment of the Turkestan Military District.

[2] He graduated from the Tashkent Tank Institute and from the Malinovsky Military Armored Forces Academy.

Since 1980 - commander of the Pavlograd motor rifle division in the Kiev Military District (Konotop) - probably the 47th MRD.