Область Войска Донского
Rybalchenko was born on 11 July 1903 in the settlement of Novoyegorylskoye in the Don Host Oblast of the Russian Empire (in the present-day Rostov Oblast in Russia). A career military officer, he first joined the Red Army in his teens in 1919, taking part in the Civil War. He subsequently joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1927 and graduated from Frunze Military Academy in 1936. He served as chief of the intelligence department and Deputy Chief of Staff for the Air Force of the Leningrad Military District from 1938 to 1941.