page_title: Collaboration with the Axis Powers
section_title: Russia
hierarchical_section_title: Collaboration with the Axis Powers / Collaboration by country / Soviet Union / Russia
caption_attribution_description: English: Commanding officer Major Ivan Denisovich Frolov (center) with the officers of the Russian National Liberation Army (RONA) during the Warsaw Uprising. The officer to the right from Frolov is Ltn. Michalczewski. First from the right, journalist Mikhail Oktan. Frolov, along with other RONA members, was charged with treason by the of Military Board of the Supreme Court of the USSR and hanged in 1946. Русский: Командующий офицер - майор Иван Денисович Фролов (в центре) с офицерами РОНА во время Варшавского восстания 1944 года. Офицер справа от Иван Фролова - лейтенант Михальчевский. Крайний справа - журналист Михаил Октан (https://labas.livejournal.com/tag/%D0%BE%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD). Иван Фролов будет казнен в 1946 году по приговору Военной коллегии Верховного суда. Polski: Dowódca pułku major Ivan Frołow (po środku) z oficerami Rosyjskiej Narodowej Armii Wyzwoleńczej (RONA) podczas Powstania Warszawskiego. Oficer po prawej od Ivana Frołowa to Ltn. Michalczewski. Żołnierzy pierwszy z prawej przypuszczalnie należy do Rosyjskiej Armia Wyzwoleńczej ROA (POA po rosyjsku) sądząc po naszywce na ramieniu.
context_page_description: Within nations occupied by the Axis powers in World War II, some citizens and organizations, prompted by nationalism, ethnic hatred, anti-communism, antisemitism, opportunism, self-defense, or often a combination, knowingly collaborated with the Axis Powers. Some of these collaborators committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, or atrocities of the Holocaust.
  Collaboration has been defined as cooperation between elements of the population of a defeated state and representatives of a victorious power. Stanley Hoffmann subdivided collaboration into involuntary and voluntary. According to Hoffmann, collaborationism can be subdivided into "servile" and "ideological"; the former is deliberate service to an enemy, whereas the latter is deliberate advocacy of cooperation with a foreign force which is seen as a champion of desirable domestic transformations. In contrast, Bertram Gordon uses the terms "collaborator" and "collaborationist", respectively, in reference to non-ideological and ideological collaborations.
context_section_description: In Russia proper, ethnic Russians were allowed to govern the Lokot Republic, an autonomous sector in Nazi-occupied Russia. Military groups under Nazi command were formed, such as the notorious S.S. Sturmbrigade R.O.N.A., infamous because of its involvement in atrocities in Belarus and Poland, and the 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Russian).
  Ethnic Russians also enlisted in large numbers into the many German auxiliary police units. Local civilians and Russian POWs, as well as Red Army defectors were encouraged to join the Wehrmacht as "hilfswillige". Some of them also served in so-called Ost battalions which, in particular, defended the French coastline against the expected Allied invasion.
  The Kalmykian Voluntary Cavalry Corps was a unit of about 5,000 Kalmyk Mongol volunteers who chose to join the Wehrmacht in 1942 rather than remain in Kalmykia as the German Army retreated before the Red Army.
  In May 1943, German General Helmuth von Pannwitz was given authorization to create a Cossack Division consisting of two brigades primarily from Don and Kuban Cossacks, including former exiled White Army commanders such as Pyotr Krasnov and Andrei Shkuro. The division however was then not sent to fight the Red Army, but was ordered, in September 1943, to proceed to Yugoslavia and fight Josip Broz Tito's partisans. In the summer of 1944, the two brigades were upgraded to become the 1st Cossack Cavalry Division and 2nd Cossack Cavalry Division. From the beginning of 1945, these divisions were combined to become XVth SS Cossack Cavalry Corps.
  Pro-German Russian forces also included the anti-communist Russian Liberation Army (ROA, Russian: POA: Русская Освободительная Армия), which saw action as a part of the Wehrmacht. On 1 May 1945, however, ROA turned against the SS and fought on the side of Czech insurgents during the Prague Uprising.
  The 6th Army Unit of the Wehrmacht under Paulus, that participated in the Battle of Stalingrad, had over 50,000 Russian auxiliaries attached to its front-line divisions, representing over a quarter of their strength.
  One of eleven Russian Hiwis from the Novo-Alexandrovsk camp that were recruited by the Germans at the end of November recalled to his NKVD interrogator "Russians in the German Army can be divided into three categories. Firstly, soldiers mobilised by German troops, so-called Cossack sections, which are attached to German divisions. Secondly, Hilfswillige made up of local people [Russians] or Russian prisoners who volunteer, or those Red Army soldiers who desert to join the Germans. This category wears full German uniform, with their own ranks and badges. They eat like German soldiers and are attached to German regiments. Thirdly, there are Russian prisoners who do the dirty jobs, kitchens, stables and so on. These three categories are treated in different ways".
  The head of the political directorate of the Red Army Aleksandr Scherbakov was informed that "On some parts of the front there have been cases of former Russians who put on Red Army uniform and penetrate our positions for the purpose of reconnaissance and seizing officer and soldier prisoners for interrogation". The number of Russians that were accused of collaborating with the Germans led to the creation of the term 'former Russian' that was used to sentence hundreds of thousands of Russian collaborators.
  On 22 June 1943 a parade of the Wehrmacht and Russian collaborationist forces was welcomed and positively received in Pskov. The entry of Germans into Pskov was labelled "Liberation day" and the Russian tricolor flag was included in the parade inspiring "scenes of moving patriotism.
  A Russian emigre and nationalist Boris A Smyslovksy, commanded the Eastern battalion of the Russian All-Military Union based in Warsaw, and in July 1941 formed an Abwehr Training Battalion (Lehrbattalion) for anti-partisan and warfare duties under Wehrmact Group North. By December, he had recruited more than 10,000 Russians into 12 reconnaissance battalions, unified into Special Div-Russians (Sonderivsion R).
  In March 1942, Smyslovsky 
caption: Commanders of Russian National Liberation Army, which committed many war crimes during Warsaw Uprising, August 1944. They were hanged in the Soviet Union in 1946.
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