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Originally Posted by Chuikov64th
I heard of Vlasov army and have read much about it. It seems he/they recruited Russian soldiers out of camps by offering them food or death by slow starvation.
Come and fight in the Vlasov army or starve to death here. Some choice wasn't it? Fighting in Vlasovs army was just like being in a penal battalion. Many soldiers took the chance they were given and ended up with the partisans at the first opportunity they had to escape. Many of them were simply trying to survive. I read one mans story of how he was captured (Moscow?) with Vlasovs men and put in a camp around Smolensk. After having to live in an open camp that winter he joined Vlasovs army for a few months and escaped to fight with partisans around Vitebsk. He was captured again and sent to a camp in Poland for almost a year where he nearly died and in 1944 escaped to join the Czech partisans fighting the Germans. He ended up in another camp in Kharkov after the Red Army found out who he was. The NKVD finally let him go in 1947 as a free man but considered him a traitor as they did many of the Russian POWs. This was sad.
Vlasov himself was an opportunist, I believe he thought he would have some high status or something in the new world order under the victorious Reich. He was playing the cards of fate hoping to gain from the suffering of others, a true politician, unlike his abilites as a general.
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The initiation into Vlasov's army or to just fight for the Germans involved showing loyalty, in which Soviet troops would be ordered to shoot their own first in order to switch sides.
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I have been to the Ukraine recently. I'll tell you what, those people are being reamed bigtime. "Democracy" is a curse word there about now. I just read a report that said the average Ukrainian has to spend 50% of their income every month for food. 
I've seen people begging in Moscow, it's no different than NYC really but Kiev was off the scale. A LOT of people were begging. That country is in a sad state and the people that run it are the scum of the earth.
I think the people are just about done with "democracy", it makes their lives miserable. I wouldn't be surprised if the people start burning things down.
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Sad indeed my friend, sad indeed..... The entire country is corrupt. Many Ukrainians now search for jobs in Russia as a result.