 Fyodor was born to the family of a military physician in Lokhvytsia Uezd of Poltava Gubernia (currently, Ukraine) of the Russian Empire.His family was of Ukrainian Cossacks ancestry.Fyodor received his education at Saint Petersburg, where he graduated from the Konstantin Cadet Corps (Konstantinovskiy Kadetskiy Korpus) and Mikhail Artillery School in 1866, and served in Kiev with the Fortress Artillery.