It numbered 650 persons, who served for a year in the occupied Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (present-day Belarus) before disbanding.

[3] Prior to Operation Barbarossa, both Stepan Bandera and Andriy Melnyk, who led rival branches of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists actively cooperated with Nazi Germany.

[citation needed] According to the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and other sources, Bandera held meetings with the heads of Germany's intelligence, regarding the formation of the Nachtigall and Roland Battalions.

On 25 February 1941, the head of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Franz Canaris, sanctioned the creation of the "Ukrainian Legion" under German command.

[6] The battalion was set up by the Abwehr and organized by Richard Yary of the OUN(b) in March 1941, prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

[9] On 24 July the Roland Battalion was transferred to the command of the 54th army corps with the task to guard roads to East of the Dniester river.

[10] On 10 August 1941, the command of the 11th Army received a telegram from Abwehr, saying, "After consultations with the Reichsminister of the occupied territories of the East, the Roland organization should be excluded from campaign because of political reasons".