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", , 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. After retiring in 1997, he worked with others on a six-volume history of Russian intelligence, wrote two books of his own, and lectured widely on intelligence matters. Over the course of his career he received 54 awards from the Soviet, Russian and foreign governments. He died in 2005, survived by his wife, Valeriya Nikolaevna, an academic specialising in Arabic literature. Their son, Sergei Vadimovich, was a prominent diplomat in the Arab world, serving as ambassador to several Middle Eastern countries, including to Egypt, where his father had served as KGB resident for a number of years.