Not long after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Klubov was deployed in August as part of the allied invasion of Iran. He briefly fought in the conflict before returning to his post less than a month later in September. In July 1942 he was deployed to the front of the Battle for the Caucasus as a flight commander. He scored his first aerial victory in August after he shot down a Bf 109 while flying an I-153. He soon increased his tally of victories, but after engaging in one dogfight that resulted in gaining two shared kills of Bf 109s he was shot down. Despite desperately trying to land his I-153, he was forced to parachute out of his stricken plane after suffering serious burns. His face and neck bore scars from the incident long after he was released from the hospital in January 1943. When he returned to his regiment, he began flying missions in the I-16 fighter his regiment had switched to, but he did not score any aerial victories with it. In April his unit was sent away from the warfront for retraining, but in May he and fourteen other pilots from the 84th Fighter Regiments were transferred to the 16th Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment. Klubov and several ofhis colleagues were then assigned to the 1st squadron and underwent training under the supervision of Aleksandr Pokryshkin, one of the highest-scoring aces of the Soviet Union.