After Romania switched sides during World War II and the Soviet army came to Romania, Leshchenko was not arrested and became the protégé of general Vladimir Ivanovich Burenin, military commander of the Red Army garrison in Bucharest. Some sources believe this was due to Marshal Georgy Zhukov being a secret admirer of his music - Pyotr probably thought so, and after the War, wrote many letters to friends in the Soviet Union asking them to contact high-level officials so that he and Vera might be allowed back to the country of their birth.