The autonomy covered the area of eight raions (the present-day Brasovsky, Dmitriyevsky, Dmitrovsky, Komarichsky, Navlinsky, Sevsky, Suzemsky and Zheleznogorsky districts) now divided between Bryansk, Oryol and Kursk Oblasts.

[7] The Lokot Autonomy was ruled by a Russian civil administration led by Bronislav Kaminski and Konstantin Voskoboinik.

[5] The German authorities established the Autonomy to serve as a test case for a Russian collaborating government under the SS in the proposed Reichskommissariat Moskowien.

Soon after that, the commander of the 2nd Army Generaloberst Rudolf Schmidt appointed Kaminski as the mayor of the Korück 532 centered in the township of Lokot.

Germans did not interfere in the Lokot Autonomy's affairs as long as their transports were kept safe, and the republic delivered the required food quotas to the Wehrmacht.

The schools (closed after the German invasion) reopened, and a radio station and some theater groups were established in Lokot, Dmitrovsk and Sevsk[10] Newspapers published in the Lokot Autonomy were typical of all newspapers published on Nazi-occupied Russian territories, featuring articles claiming Judeo-Bolshevik crimes along with Nazi propaganda with the usual heavy dose of antisemitism.

The Jewish population in the Autonomy was murdered without German assistance: 223 Jews were shot dead in the township of Suzemka, and 39 at Navlya.

By late 1942, the militia of the Lokot Autonomy had expanded to the size of a 14-battalion brigade with close to 8,000 men under arms called the Russian National Liberation Army (RONA).

In the summer of 1943, the brigade began to suffer significant desertions, due in part to the recent Soviet victories and the partisans' efforts 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.

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

[6] After the war, former members RONA and supporters of the Lokot Autonomy formed anti-communist guerrilla movement, that slowly degenerated into organized crime groups and was suppressed in 1951.

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.

[18] Anatoli Ivanov portrayed the Lokot Republic in his novel Eternal Call (Russian: Вечный зов) and the corresponding TV sequel, which was popular in the Soviet Union.