He was subsequently assigned to serve in Russian Turkestan, and was a staff officer of the 2nd Turkistan Army Corps in 1914.

He was Assistant Chief of Intelligence in the staff of the Russian Caucasian Army, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1915.

In the wake of the October Revolution and the collapse at the Russian front, Shteifon returned to his native Kharkov where he headed an underground organization to recruit and relay officers who wanted to join the Volunteer Army.

However, with the growing collapse of the White movement, he was forced to evacuate into Poland with his men, then arrived in Crimea to continue active duty under General Pyotr Wrangel.

He evacuated with the remnants of Wrangel's forces to Constantinople and arrived to the Gallipoli camp for White Russian refugees.

[1] Until the spring of 1944, the principal task of the Russian Corps, which was mainly composed of former servicemen of the Russian Imperial Army and the White Army, was to guard certain sites and areas from the Communist partisans led by Josip Broz Tito, who were supported by the USSR and later in the war also by Britain; in 1944 the Corps was actively engaged in fighting against Tito's partisans; and finally, from September 1944, after the previously Germany-allied Romania and Bulgaria switched sides and regular units of the Red Army advanced into the Western Balkans, the Corps also fought against the regular Soviet troops in Serbia and later in what is now Croatia.