[5][6] After the Wehrmacht lost the Battle of Kursk in August 1943, RONA personnel retreated to the territory of Byelorussia, especially to the Lepel area of Vitebsk, where they participated in German security operations, committing numerous atrocities against the civilian population.

After Operation Bagration (June to August 1944), the RONA retreated further west, and by the end of July 1944, the remains of the Kaminski unit (3 to 4 thousand—some sources estimate 6 to 7 thousand) assembled at the SS training camp at Neuhammer (now Świętoszów).

The Warsaw Uprising began on the same day that Heinrich Himmler signed an order for the establishment of the division (1 August 1944).

After the end of October 1944 the brigade was disbanded and the remaining personnel absorbed into General Andrey Vlasov's Russian Liberation Army.

After the war, former members of the brigade and supporters of the Lokot Autonomy formed a partisan movement, which slowly degenerated into organized crime groups and was suppressed in 1951.

The Lokot area was, before the beginning of the war on the Eastern Front, designated for the incarceration of people forbidden to return to their previous homes in major cities of the Soviet Union – as Kaminski himself was.

[12][13] In co-operation with German forces, the militia began anti-partisan operations and by the spring of 1942, its number increased to 1,400 armed personnel.

On 19 July 1942, after approval from Commander of Army Group Centre, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, Schmidt and 532 Area commander Volksdeutsche, Kaminski received a certain degree of autonomy and nominal self-rule and self-governing powers under the supervision of Major von Veltheim and Colonel Rübsam.

Kaminski was made a chief major of the Autonomous Administration of Lokot (comprising eight raions) and brigade commander of the local militia.

The official results of this operation, the first major one where Kaminski's troops participated, were 1,193 alleged partisans killed, 1,400 wounded, 498 captured, 12,531 civilians "evacuated".

Due to the lack of military dress and boots (some units were barefoot), the Germans provided used uniforms for Kaminski's brigade, sufficient for only 4 battalions.

The brigade, together with other units under German command, was 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 major desertions due in part to the recent Soviet victories and to the efforts of the partisans to "turn" as many of Kaminski's troops as possible.

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.

On July 29, 1944, Kaminski issued orders for the evacuation of property and families of RONA brigade members and Lokot authorities.

Up to 30,000 persons (10-11,000 of them brigade members) were transferred by the Germans to the Lepel area of Vitebsk in Belarus by the end of August 1943.

During these operations local civilians were shot as "suspected partisans" or deported as slave laborers, their villages burned down.

At the same time, thousands of Polish civilians were killed by the RONA SS men during the events known as the Ochota massacre; many of the victims were also raped.

In one incident, a sub-unit had stopped their advance to loot a captured building on the front line and was consequently cut off and destroyed by the Poles.

The German commander in Warsaw, SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, stated in post war trials that the unit "had no military combat value whatsoever, with both officers and soldiers having not even a hint of tactical understanding.

"I saw Kaminski's men removing entire cartloads of stolen jewellery, gold watches, and precious stones.

During their stay in the forest, the unit's artillery battery and one of its infantry battalions were suddenly attacked by 80 Polish partisans led by Lieutenant Colonel "Dolina" (Adolf Pilch) while stationed at the emptied village of Truskaw.

[16] A captured diary of the Kaminski brigade soldier, Ivan Vashenko, (killed at Truskaw) was published in Poland in 1947.

As the front line approached again, the remnants of the brigade and accompanying civilian refugees were due to be evacuated to Hungary, but the start of the Slovak National Uprising left it stranded in railway trains near Racibórz in southern Poland.

[18] From November 1944, remnants of the brigade (some sources estimated its strength at up to 2,000) forwarded into the military training camp Münsingen, with a formation of the 600.

After the end of World War II in Europe, some of the former RONA and Lokot personnel were repatriated by Western Allies to the Soviet Union.