Nikolay Gastello graduated from a Sokolniki high school in Moscow in 1918, and his family then moved to Bashkiria, escaping the horrors of the Russian Civil War.

Gastello fought against the Japanese in Battle of Khalkin Gol in 1939, where he was awarded the Order of Lenin; he then saw action in the Winter War with Finland.

On June 26, five days after the war started, a pair of aircraft led by Gastello bombed a German position near the village of Dekshnyany in Belarus.

Gastello's bomber was reportedly hit by flak, with his wing fuel tank being ruptured and the aircraft subsequently becoming engulfed in flames.

Supporters of the official version of events also doubt the accuracy of the 1951 reburial story, as an aircraft that dives into the ground and explodes in a fireball is unlikely to include entire bodies with intact parachutes they can be wrapped in.

The publicity led to President Boris Yeltsin awarding Captain Maslov the Hero of the Russian Federation title in 1996.