The idea proliferated throughout the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht as a way to compensate for the losses of German troops on the Eastern Front.

[2] In March 1942, Ivanov met with Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, and received permission to form a Russian military unit from Soviet prisoners of war in Barysaw, Smolensk, Roslavl, and Vyazma.

[1] Initially, the RNNA's leadership sought only to recruit anti-communists from the prisoners of war, but later began to accept everyone.

The RNNA's leadership told soldiers that their task was, "the fight against Bolshevism and Jewry for the creation of a new Russian state and the restoration of the pre-revolutionary system."

In only a three-day period in August 1942, roughly 200 RNNA soldiers defected to Soviet partisans.

[3] However, only a month later, the organisation was taken over by the Germans directly, with Boyarsky and Georgy Zhilenkov [ru], head of the propaganda department of the RNNA, both being taken prisoner.