In 1944, it became known as the Armed Forces of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (Вооружённые силы Комитета освобождения народов России, Vooruzhonnyye sily Komiteta osvobozhdeniya narodov Rossii, abbreviated as ВС КОНР, VS KONR).

Soon, several German commanders began to use them in small armed units for various tasks, including combat against Soviet partisans, driving vehicles, carrying wounded, and delivering supplies.

[5] Following a series of attempted or successful mutinies, and a surge in desertions,[6] the Germans decided in September 1943 that the reliability of the units had fallen to a level where they were more a liability than an asset.

"[7] Two days previously, the German army had given permission to the KTB to take harsh measures in the event of further cases of rebellion or unreliability, investing regimental commanders with far-reaching powers to hold summary courts and execute the verdicts.

Since it was felt that the reliability of Russian volunteers would improve if they were removed from contact with the local population, it was decided to send them to the Western Front,[8] and the majority of them were re-deployed in late 1943 or early 1944.

"[13] Benjamin Tromly writes that "Vlasovite-run press organs and camps to train Russian propagandists praised National Socialism and spread Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda", and the "democratic veneer" seen in the declarations of ROA was only made in attempt to make the movement palatable to the Western powers.

The Vlasovites opposed their programs, the Smolensk Declaration, Vlasov's open letter "Why I Decided to Fight against Bolshevism", the Prague Manifesto of the KONR and Bloknot Propagandista (an important document which was written by rather minor members of the KONR as open for discussion and was not recognized as an official program), both to the Western capitalism and Stalinism, which was called by the word "Bolshevism" and described in the Manifesto not as socialism, but as "state capitalism", and proclaimed their devotion to "completing the Revolution" of 1917 without distinguishing the February Revolution and the October Revolution, and to ideals of either a "Russia without Bolsheviks and Capitalists" (Smolensk Declaration and the open letter), or a welfare state (Bloknot Propagandista); the influence of the NTS on the Manifesto is seen in the description of the future system of Russia as a "national-labour" system, some of Vlasov's chief commanders joined the NTS.

However, antisemitic remarks were made in one of the speeches of Vasily Malyshkin and in and in Georgi Zhilenkov's interview to the Völkischer Beobachter; Vlasov was critical of such remarks and replied to the Nazi concerns that "the Jewish question" "was an internal Russian problem and would be dealt with after they [the ROA] had accomplished the primary aim of overthrowing the existing regime"; however, antisemitism frequently appeared in the pro-Vlasov Nazi and collaborationist newspapers, including the ones edited by Zykov, often in form of articles reprinted from the Völkischer Beobachter with the citation of the source.

The suspicions and criticism of the Vlasovites from the Reich officials was summarised in a document by the Ministry of Propaganda official Eberhard Taubert who described his concerns about the movement being "not National Socialist": "It is significant that it does not fight Jewry, that the Jewish Question is not recognized as such at all"; instead it presented "a watered-down infusion of liberal and Bolshevik ideologies", and Taubert described the concern with "strong Anglophile sympathies" and it "toying with the idea of a possible change of course" while not "feel[ing] bound to Germany".

[15][16][17] The ROA did not officially exist until autumn of 1944, after Heinrich Himmler persuaded a very reluctant Hitler to permit the formation of 10 Russian Liberation Army divisions.

On 28 January 1945, it was officially declared that the Russian divisions no longer formed part of the German Army, but would be directly under the command of KONR.

Vlasov sent several secret delegations to the Western Allies to begin negotiating a surrender, hoping they would sympathise with the goals of ROA and potentially use it in an inevitable future war with the USSR.

The ROA units, armed with heavy weaponry, fended off the relentless SS assault, and together with the Czech insurgents succeeded in preserving most of Prague from destruction.

[21] Due to the predominance of communists in the new Czech Rada ("council"), the first division had to leave the city the very next day and tried to surrender to US Third Army of General Patton.

[b][citation needed] The Soviet government labelled all ROA soldiers (vlasovtsy) as traitors, and those who were repatriated were tried and sentenced to detention in prison camps.