Oleg was born in Uzhgorod, Ukraine. He obtained an MSc degree in 1977 from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology under the supervision of E.L. Nagaev. The title of his thesis was Inhomogeneous ferromagnetism of conducting magnetics with ions in a singlet ground state. Upon completion, he obtained a position at Uzhgorod National University, first in the Department of Physical and Quantum Electronics and then in Theoretical Physics. Under the direction of V.I. Lendel of Vilnius University, he obtained a PhD degree in 1985 for a thesis entitled Study of the Autoionization States of Alkaline and Alkaline Metal Atoms and Their Effects on Recombination and Photoionization processes. He was soon appointed Head of Theoretical Physics Division, Laboratory of Electron Collision Physics, Uzhgorod State University. Upon completing and defending his D.Sc. dissertation, he became a Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Electron Physics of the Ukrainian Academy of Science, a position he would hold from 1993 – 2001.
