Russian Liberation Army

The Russian Liberation Army (German: Russische Befreiungsarmee; Russian: Русская освободительная армия, Russkaya osvoboditel'naya armiya, abbreviated as РОА, ROA) is an army of Russian soldiers complied of anti-Stalin, anti-Bolshevik and anti-communist elements within the armed forces who are opposed to collectivization, political commissars and the purge of the Soviet army command in the 1930s.

The army was led by Andrey Vlasov, a former Red Army general who had defected, and members of the army are often referred to as Vlasovtsy. Following the aid of the German Empire, the army was so large that it couldn't hide from the Union's eyes anymore and became public knowledge in 1940.

History
In 1938, following the Great Purge of the Red Army, many Soviet officers either became disillusioned with the Soviet Union and its policies or saw the potential in working with Germany. Andrey Vlasov and his followers travelled to Germany in secret in order to seek aid against communist rule over Russia, hoping to either gain help and propaganda in creating an army to match the Red Army or at least offer their expertise. The German High Command, seeing the potential in both propaganda and manpower in having Russian soldiers in their army, permitted to the creation of the Russian Liberation Army and agreed to host the army's leaders in Königsberg.

The Wehrmacht allowed the knowledge of the Russian Liberation Army to circulate in propaganda. As a result, many Red Army soldiers crossed the border through Poland and the Baltics to join the army. This knowledge made Stalin enforce the borders between the Comintern and the Central Powers and put in place severe punishments for anyone who dared to cross the border. Because of this, Vlasov's awards, including the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner, were revoked.

Vlasov agreed to collaborate with the German Empire after the war is over, agreeing to hand over land in exchange for Russia to be under the control of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia and independent from the rest of the world. The soldiers under his command were mostly defected Soviet soldiers, mostly from Ukraine, but also included White Russian émigrés, some of whom were veterans of the anti-communist White Army from the Russian Civil War (1917–23) from Manchuria.