“Dear Father! I have been taken prisoner. I am in good health. I will soon be sent to a camp for officers in Germany. I am being treated well. I wish you god health. Greeting to everyone. Yasha.”

Later in the war the Germans offered to trade him for a German officer held prisoner, some say Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus, who had recently surrendered at Stalingrad, but Stalin adamantly refused such a deal, denying that he had a son who had been taken prisoner. (A story later circulated that Stalin had alleged that he would not trade a field marshal for an ordinary soldier.)