The Japanese formed a bureau for the Russian emigrees; it provided identification papers necessary to live, work and travel. The Shanghai Russians were left to choose between a Soviet citizenship or to remain stateless by support of the bureau. The stateless Russians were officially favoured by the regime, but in reality, they were not trusted and were exposed to a great risk of being arrested as spies for the Soviet Union. They were also often enlisted in the army for work along the border with the Soviet Union. After 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, they were in an even more sensitive situation. To separate the anti-Soviet Russians from the Soviet Russians, the former were ordered to wear a badge with the colours of the Czar — later a white numbered disk of aluminium.