Foundation In October 1941, the Nazi German military advanced into the
Soviet Union during
Operation Barbarossa. They reached the Lokot area near the city of
Bryansk and captured it on October 6, 1941. In November 1941 Bronislav Kaminski (an engineer at a local
distillery) and
Konstantin Voskoboinik (a local technical school teacher) were approached by the German military administration to help them establish a civil administration and local police. Voskoboinik was designated by Germans as
starosta of the "Lokot
volost." Kaminski became Voskoboinik's deputy. Other deputies appointed were Stepan Mosin and Roman Ivanin (the head of the local militia), both former prisoners.
Militia Initially, the militia headed by Voskoboinik numbered no more than 200 men. It assisted Germans in policing the area and committed numerous atrocities against the civilian population loyal to the Soviet authorities or
Soviet partisans, Soviet
prisoners of war (POWs),
Jews and ordinary civilians. By January 1942 the militia's personnel was increased to 400–500. During a
partisan attack headed by Alexander Saburov on January 8, 1942, Voskoboinik was fatally wounded. Kaminski took over the command and further expanded the militia. In March 1942, Kaminski's representative to the German
2nd Panzer Army in
Oryol gave assurances that Kaminski's unit was "ready to fight the
guerrillas actively" and to carry on a propaganda campaign against "
Jewish Bolshevism" and Soviet partisans. Soon after that, the commander of
the 2nd Army Generaloberst Rudolf Schmidt appointed Kaminski as the mayor of the Korück 532 centered in the township of
Lokot. On 19 July 1942, after the Commander of the Army Group Centre, Field Marshal
Günther von Kluge gave an official approval, the Lokot administration received some degree of
autonomy and nominal self-rule under the supervision of Major von Veltheim and Colonel Rübsam. Kaminsky was appointed the
Oberbürgermeister of the Autonomous Administration of Lokot (comprising eight
raions) and the brigadier of the local militia. From June 1942, Kaminski's militia took part in a major anti-partisan operation code-named Operation Vogelsang, as part of General
Werner von Gilsa's
Kampfgruppe (battle group) Gilsa II. headquarters officers and German police officers. Photograph taken on March 21, 1944 by G. Wehmeyer, a serviceman of the 697th Wehrmacht Propaganda Company (3rd Tank Army) Germans did not interfere in the Lokot Autonomy's affairs as long as their transports were kept safe, and the republic delivered the required food quotas to the
Wehrmacht. Kaminski established a court, jails, and newspapers.
Collective farms were abolished, and a significant degree of free enterprise was permitted. Kaminski's speeches published in the region's newspapers emphasized that Nazi Germany and Russia "are the same." The schools (closed after the German invasion) reopened, and a radio station and some theater groups were established in Lokot,
Dmitrovsk and
Sevsk Newspapers published in the Lokot Autonomy were typical of all newspapers published on Nazi-occupied Russian territories, featuring articles claiming
Judeo-Bolshevik crimes along with
Nazi propaganda with the usual heavy dose of
antisemitism. The Jewish population in the Autonomy was murdered without German assistance: 223 Jews were shot dead in the township of
Suzemka, and 39 at
Navlya. In October 1942, Kaminski renamed Lokot township as the town of Voskoboinik. Streets in other townships of the Autonomy were also renamed. In the autumn of 1942, Kaminski ordered the compulsory draft into the militia of all non-disabled men. Its units were reinforced with the "volunteers" drafted from Soviet POWs at the nearest Nazi concentration camps. Due to the lack of uniforms and boots (some units were barefoot), the Germans provided Kaminski's brigade with used uniforms: these were sufficient for only four battalions. Kaminski ordered the gathering of Soviet tanks and armored cars abandoned in 1941 due to the lack of fuel or minor mechanical failures – by November 1942, his unit had at least two
BT-7 tanks and one 76 mm artillery gun. By late 1942, the militia of the Lokot Autonomy had expanded to the size of a 14-
battalion brigade with close to 8,000 men under arms called the
Russian National Liberation Army (RONA). From November 19, 1942, to December 1942, Lokot was inspected by
Alfred Rosenberg. In January 1943, the brigade numbered 9,828 people; the armored unit of brigade had in total 15 vehicles: • two heavy
KV-2, • four medium
T-34, • four
BT-7, • two
SU-76 self-propelled guns. • three armored cars (
BA-10, two
BA-20). In the spring of 1943, the brigade's structure was reorganized. There were five regiments created with three battalions in each, an anti-aircraft battalion (three AA guns and four heavy machine guns) and an armored unit. A separate "guard" battalion was created, with brigade strength estimated to be 12,000 men in total. Before
Operation Citadel, the massive offensive to destroy the
Kursk salient, in May–June 1943, the brigade took part in Operation Zigeunerbaron ("Gypsy Baron") together with other German units. Similar operations followed this operation, such as
Freischütz and
Tannhäuser, in which the brigade and other units under German command were involved in action against partisans and also took part in
reprisal operations against the civilian population. In the summer of 1943, the brigade began to suffer significant desertions, due in part to the recent Soviet victories and the partisans' efforts to "turn" as many of Kaminski's troops as possible. As a part of these efforts, several attempts on Kaminski's life were carried out. Each time, Kaminski narrowly avoided death and punished the conspirators with execution. Several German officers passing through Lokot reported seeing bodies hanging from
gallows outside Kaminski's headquarters. Fearing a breakdown in command, a German liaison staff was attached to Kaminski's HQ to restructure the brigade and return stability to the unit. After the German failure of Citadel, the Soviet counteroffensives forced the brigade, along with their families, to flee with the retreating Germans. On the 29th of July, 1943, Kaminski issued an order to evacuate the RONA brigade and Lokot authorities' property and families. Germans transferred up to 30 thousand persons (10–11,000 of them were brigade members) to the
Lepel area of
Vitebsk in
Belarus by the end of August 1943. By September 1943, the force had 10,000 men, divided into: • 5 infantry regiments, each of 3 battalions, • one artillery battalion (36 field guns), • and an armour unit of 24 captured Soviet tanks and armoured vehicles, • in addition to engineer, signal, and medical units. According to possibly unreliable post-war Soviet estimates, up to 10,000 civilians were killed by forces loyal to the Lokot Autonomy. ==Armed forces==