Savinkov was born in Kharkiv, his father was a deputy district prosecutor, and his mother was a writer. He studied at a gymnasium in Warsaw, then at St. Petersburg University. He was expelled for participating in student riots. Savinkov was a member of various social democratic groups, was repeatedly arrested, and fled abroad.

In 1903, in Geneva, he joined the Socialist Revolutionary (SRs) Party and its Combat organization. He took part in the organization of terrorist attacks, including the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs Vyacheslav Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. He headed the Combat Organization of the Socialist Revolutionaries in 1909–1911. During World War I, he was a war correspondent for the Russian newspapers in France.

In April 1917, he returned to Russia. Provisional Government appointed him Commissar of the 7th Army of the Southwestern Front, Deputy Minister of War, Head of the War and Naval Ministries. He played a key role in the events of August 1917 (Kornilov affair), acting as a mediator in the negotiations between Aleksander Kerensky and Lavr Kornilov. September 1917 saw Savinkov expelled from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. In October 1917, he tried to suppress the Bolshevik coup, took part in the offensive on Petrograd by the troops of General Pyotr Krasnov, then moved to the Don. In December 1917, Savinkov became a member of the Don Civil Council.

In February–March 1918, he founded the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom to carry out armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. He managed the organization of the Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom armed uprisings in Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, and Murom in the summer of 1918. Along with some former members of the Union, Savinkov joined the People’s Army of the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch) for a while. Then, on behalf of the Provisional All-Russian Government (Ufa Directorate), he went on a military mission to France. He became a member of the Russian political delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, negotiated with the Entente governments to obtain support for the White movement.

In 1920, by agreement with Józef Pilsudski, he formed the Russian Political Committee in Warsaw and participated in the formation of the 3rd Russian army to fight the Bolsheviks. After the defeat of the Whites, he organized the People’s Union for the Defense of the Motherland and Freedom, focused on uniting the Greens [armed peasant groups in the Civil war].

In August 1924, after illegally crossing the Soviet-Polish border, Savinkov was arrested by the Soviet authorities. He was sentenced to death (commuted by 10-year imprisonment). At the trial, he pleaded guilty. While in prison, he wrote a letter to the leaders of the White emigration with an appeal to stop the struggle against the USSR. On May 7, 1925, he died in prison. The official cause of death was suicide.