How an SS brigade joined Soviet partisans in the fight against the Nazis
Colonel Constantine Kromiadi (C), Vladimir Gil (next to him), and officers of the Druzhina brigade. Archive photo The Soviet government did not know what it would do with punishers from the Druzhina SS Brigade, who had defected to its side when the war was over. In the end, that problem resolved itself.
During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens fought on the side of the Nazis. Collaborators were considered some of the worst enemies of the USSR, and Red Army soldiers often preferred not to take them prisoner, instead shooting them on the spot.