 Many other experienced Soviet pilots, including Grigory Kravchenko, Yakov Smushkevich, and Sergey Denisov were also deployed to Khalkhin Gol to provide assistance to the Mongolian People's Army Air Force, which had been crippled by NKVD arrests and decimated by Japanese aviation.He was originally supposed to command the 8th Fighter Aviation Regiment, but upon arriving he was put in charge of a squadron that used the I-153 and I-16 in the 70th Fighter Aviation Regiment instead.During a mission when he flew an I-16 on 26 June 1939 he Vyacheslav Zabaluyev, who had been shot down 60 km behind enemy lines; Gritsevets landed his fighter on the steppe near Zabaluyev's fallen plane and gave him a ride back to safe territory.