Shkot was promoted to midshipman in 1848, and participated in the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, during which he was badly wounded in the battle. Shkot became a senior commander of the troopship Yaponets at the rank of lieutenant in 1856, before accepting command of corvette-steamship Amerika a year later on June 6, 1857. Shkot led an expedition in Amerika to the recently acquired region of the Russian Far East known as Outer Manchuria, which had been ceded by Qing China to the Russian Empire.