After a distinguished career as an officer in the Soviet army, including command of a regiment in the Soviet Strategic Missile forces in the rank of colonel, Lev Lopukhovsky transferred to the Frunze Military Academy to teach tactics. Since retiring from the military he has become a professor in the Russian Federation's Academy of Military Sciences and one of the leading historians of the Soviet forces during the Second World War. In addition to many articles he has written on the subject, he has published controversial studies of the battles of Prokorovka and Viaz'ma and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.