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 during the existence of the Kaminski "Autonomy." Armed forces The republic had its armed forces: the Russian National Liberation Army, RONA (not to be confused with the Russian Liberation Army, ROA). "Lepel republic" From the end of August 1943, Kaminski tried to set up a new "Lepel Republic" in the Lepel area, which met with strong opposition from the local population. Partisans overran this area, and the brigade was involved in heavy combat for the rest of the year. During the retreat, desertions from the brigade increased significantly, and the entire formation seemed close to disintegration. When the commander of the 2nd Regiment, Major Tarasov, decided to join the partisans with all of his regiment (he was offered amnesty if his entire regiment joined the partisans), Kaminski flew to his headquarters and, according to one account, strangled him and eight others in front of his men. Despite this, up to 200 people deserted within two days. By the beginning of October 1943, the brigade lost 2/3 of its previous personnel number. On January 27, 1944, Heinrich Himmler decorated Kaminski with the Iron Cross 2nd Class and the Iron Cross 1st Class on the same day. On February 15, 1944, Kaminski issued an order to relocate the brigade and Lokot administration further west to the Dyatlovo area in West Belarus. War crimes The auxiliary police completely massacred the Jewish population of the area. The chief of the Suzemka area police Prudnikov took part in the massacres. There were 223 Jews shot in Suzemka, and 39 in Navlya. After the war After World War II in Europe, some of the former RONA and Lokot personnel were repatriated by the Western Allies to the Soviet Union. At the end of 1946, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union sentenced Yury Frolov, Stepan Mosin, and several others to death. In the 1950s and 1960s, several other former officials of the Autonomy were apprehended by the KGB; some of them were also sentenced to death, most notably the Lokot Autonomy's executioner Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg, found in 1978 and sentenced to death. Cultural references Anatoli Ivanov portrayed the Lokot Republic in his novel Eternal Call () and the corresponding TV