When Soviet power returned to Bessarabia in 1944, Petru Lupan was immediately drafted into the Soviet army. He quickly deserted and went into hiding. In addition to the charges of desertion he confessed to taking part in the mass murder of Jews at Cepeleuti. The Lupan case forms part of a collection of Soviet postwar investigation and trial materials on alleged collaborators. More than 320,000 Soviet citizens were arrested as a result of the state's effort to punish Nazi and Romanian collaborators in formerly occupied Soviet territories