Shortly after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, while Red Army troops were retreating from the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Mikhail Yevseyevich Zuyev, the starosta of the Old Believer village of Zaskari, declared an autonomous republic under Nazi Germany after consulting with his villagers.
Zuyev ventured to Polotsk, where he requested weapons and ammunition from the local German garrison.
They gave him 50 rifles and several boxes of ammunition, in turn for guarantees to uphold logistics and ensure the absence of partisans in the area of the republic.
[5] In May 1942, an Estonian SS police battalion, which had been tasked with clearing partisans in the area, entered the territory of the republic.
The Zuyev Republic, on the other hand, was receiving decreased amounts of resources from Germany, and in turn more was being demanded.
In 1944, the German garrison proposed that the republic be extended, and receive large shipments of military equipment, including artillery.
As he fled west, he joined the Russian Liberation Army under Andrey Vlasov, rising to the rank of second lieutenant.
There are claims that following the war, he fled to France and later Brazil or surrendered to the British military forces.
[6] However, records of the Obsk correctional labour camp, located near Salekhard, note the death of a person named Mikhail Yevseyevich Zuyev, born in 1884 in Polotsk district.