Ivankov was born in the village of Antonovo, Chuchkovsky District, Ryazan Oblast, in what was then the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, in the Soviet Union. With the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, he was soon pressed into service. He joined the Red Army in 1942, seeing action on the Leningrad Front as part of the Baltic Fleet in the Kronstadt defensive region, as part of the Observation and Communication Service. He went on to see action in the operations around the Oranienbaum Bridgehead.