[1][3] Before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War Zhigarev served as First Deputy Head of the Main Directorate of the Air Force in the People's Commissariat of Defence.

He was then promoted to become its Head in 1941, as well as simultaneously holding the positions of Commander in Chief of the Air Force and Deputy People's Commissar of Defence.

[1][3] Zhigarev's promotion to the position of Commander of the Air Force was largely due to the elimination of high-ranking officers in the Great Purge.

The Air Force, or VVS as it was then called, suffered particularly badly in the Purge, and Zhigarev's three predecessors (Aleksandr Loktionov, Yakov Smushkevich, and Pavel Rychagov) were all executed in 1941 by the NKVD for perceived military failures.

However, despite disastrous losses, the VVS did manage to recover slowly for the rest of Operation Barbarossa, though the Luftwaffe did continue to hold air superiority, if not supremacy.

[8] As the speed of the German advance slowed and the VVS began reasserting itself, the Soviets launched a major operation which became the Battles of Rzhev.

[12] The Soviet-Japanese War was in many ways a perfect operation for the Red Army, as Japanese forces collapsed rapidly and the entirety of Manchukuo was liberated within days.