[1] However, some Western sources indicate him to be the top ace of the war, and he claimed to have 23 victories in his memoir, which would put him above Sutyagin's 22 shootdowns.

[3] With the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941, he was retained in the Far East despite several requests for a combat posting in the west, especially after his brother Konstantin was killed in action.

In 1945 he was made deputy commander of the 300th Fighter Aviation Regiment, and participated in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, during which he flew four (by other accounts 30)[5] ground-attack missions on the Yak-9T.

[6] The 300th Fighter Aviation Regiment was then assigned surveillance duties covering the deployment of the US troops in Korea until March 1946, when the unit was sent back to the Soviet Union.

[14] On 16 October he and his wingman Aleksandr Ryzhkov caught a pair of Sabres of the 336th Fighter Squadron; Pepelyaev shot down one of them, 49-1147, though some sources say the plane was lost due to running out of fuel.

[14][15] On 8 November 1951 two more American aircraft were claimed; over Pkhenvon he spotted four F-86s, and opened fire at 150–200 m (490–660 ft), downing F-86A 49-1338 flown by Charles W. Pratt (334th Fighter Squadron), who perished.

[6] When he returned to the Soviet Union, Pepelyayev was promoted to deputy commander of the 15th Fighter Aviation Division in November 1952, and was stationed in Oryol.

[22] In 1958, Pepelyaev graduated from the Military Academy of the General Staff and was appointed commander of the 133rd Fighter Aviation Division in Yaroslavl.

Despite receiving immediate medical attention and recovery, he was decommissioned from flight service and was assigned to the central command post of the Soviet Air Defence Forces.

[22] After demobilization, Pepelyaev lived in Moscow where he worked as a main engineer at the Scientist Research Automatic Instruments Institute until retirement in 1986.

In July 1993, he returned to North Korea together with Soviet flying aces Sergey Kramarenko and Dmitry Oskin, during the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the end of Korean War.