 In 2004, Motylev won the Tomsk qualifier and in the Superfinal of the 57th Russian Championship he finished fourth, behind Garry Kasparov, with whom Motylev drew, Alexander Grischuk and Alexey Dreev.In 2005, he tied for first in the Aeroflot Open.Later that year, Motylev finished second at the 2nd Sanjin Hotel Cup, behind Pentala Harikrishna, whom he defeated, and qualified again for the Russian Superfinal, this time by finishing equal third in Kazan.