In September 1941 he served in the NKVD Special Section (counterintelligence; which later became SMERSH) of the Southwestern Front under Mikhail Kirponos and was taken a POW after the collapse of Soviet defense of Kiev. Thrice he was put in German POW camps and thrice he managed to escape. Pretending to be an ethnic German from Ukraine, he managed to get a position as a kitchen hand in the 2nd SS Division Das Reich. He then escaped to Hungary, where he met a Swiss industrialist who offered him an employment. Mikhalkov worked in Switzerland, France, Belgium and Turkey but eventually managed to cross the front line in Latvia dressed in the uniform of a captain of 3rd SS Division Totenkopf he killed.