Ozimin continued to command the 31st after Operation Barbarossa began. In October 1941 the division joined the 56th Separate Army, formed in the North Caucasus Military District, which was sent to the Southern Front in November. With the 56th Army, the division fought in the Rostov defensive and offensive operations, during which it recaptured Rostov-on-Don. Ozimin was promoted to major general on 27 December. Subsequently, the division and its army transferred to the North Caucasian Front and later the Black Sea Group of Forces of the Transcaucasian Front, fighting in the Armavir–Maikop and Tuapse defensive operations during the Battle of the Caucasus. In August 1942, Ozimin was arrested and placed under investigation for "losing command and control" of his troops. He was sentenced to ten years in a corrective labor camp by the front military tribunal on 14 August, with the sentence postponed until after the end of the war. Ozimin was appointed head of the combat training department of the staff of the 4th Shock Army in December. A decision of the Military Tribunal of the Kalinin Front on 18 April 1943 expunged the sentence from his record and on the same day he took command of the 91st Guards Rifle Division.