Nogai's father Tatar had died when he was serving under Hulegu.

In 1262, during the civil war between Berke and Hulegu Khan, Nogai's army surprised the invading forces of Hulegu at the Terek River.

Many thousands were drowned, and the survivors fled back into Azerbaijan.

In 1265, Nogai led his army across the Danube, sending the imperial forces fleeing before him, and devastated the cities of Thrace.

In 1266, the Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, anxious to make an alliance, had given his daughter Euphrosyne Palaeologina to Nogai as a wife.

That same year, Nogai lost an eye fighting his relative, Abaqa Khan, in Tiflis, but he lived on good terms with Abaq and his successor Arghun after the death of Berke.

Nogai rules the Ukrainians of Galicia-Volhynia, the Ossetians and part of the Vlachs directly.

He had attacked Lithuania with the northern Russian princes in 1275.

Nogai sends four thousand Mongol soldiers to Constantinople in 1282, to help his father in law Emperor Michael suppress the rebels headed by John I Doukas of Thessaly, but Michael dies and Andronikos II uses the allied troops to fight against Serbia.