Born to a peasant Russian family from the rural locality of Bogorodskoye near Ufa, Russian Empire in 1913, Kiselyov studied in Leningrad. Following the 22 June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, he went off to war as a recently graduated student of international commerce in Leningrad and Communist Party member and began serving in the Red Army as a politruk (army political officer) in 1941.