On Kirpichenko's return to the USSR in 1974 he was appointed deputy head of the First Chief Directorate and placed in charge of Department "S", illegal KGB intelligence gathering [ru], and in 1979 he became First Deputy Head of the First Chief Directorate, a post he would hold for the remainder of the existence of the Soviet Union. In late 1979 he was sent to Afghanistan to direct KGB operations surrounding Operation Storm-333, and the beginning of Soviet intervention in the country. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kirpichenko became head of a group of consultants under the director of one of the KGB's successors, the Foreign Intelligence Service.