Characters / TNO West Russia

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Western Russia Unifiers

West Russian Revolutionary Front

Official Name: West Russian Revolutionary Front

Ruling Party: Zapadnorusskiy Revolyutsionnyy Front^note West Russian Revolutionary Front

Ideology: Bolshevism^note Communism

For its tropes, see the dedicated West Russian Revolutionary Front subpage.

Komi Republic

Official Name: Komi Republic

Ruling Party: Demokraticheskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Narodnaya Partiya^note Democratic Socialist People's Party

Ideology: Democratic Socialism^note Progressivism

An unstable liberal democratic republic formed in the aftermath of the West Russian War. For its tropes, see the dedicated Komi subpage.

Vyatka

^{Flag of the Sovereignty of Western Russia}

^{Flag of the Russian Empire}

Official Name: Governorate of Vyatka, Sovereignty of Western Russia (regional unification), Russian Empire (superregional unification)

Ruling Party: Russkiy Obshche-Voinskiy Soyuz^note Russian All-Military Union

Ideology: Aristocratic Conservatism^note Despotism

A pocket of monarchism founded by the head of the House of Romanov, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich. Vladimir collaborated with Nazi Germany during the Second World War, and pushed into Communist territory during the West Russian War, founding his new Empire at Vyatka. He has since been abandoned by German forces, and struggles to expand his Empire. However, Vladimir is determined to reunify Russia under his leadership for the sake of his people.

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• The Alliance: Since Germany and Japan are rivals to Russia, Vyatka will seek an alliance with the OFN.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: While the Tsar's personal collaboration with the Germans was weak and reluctant, many of his supporters' was not, especially among the displaced aristocracy. An early series of events involves an elderly Jewish citizen being brutally assaulted by a nobleman's son out of naked sadism and anti-Semitism, both of them clearly expecting there to be no consequences, and Vladimir having to decide how to handle the situation.
• Broken Pedestal: The people of Vyatka will be shaken once the newspapers discover and publish documents that expose Vladimir as a former German collaborator aiming to secure power by backing the Nazis. He and his supporters can aim to rectify this with a speech directly addressing it.
• The Church: Despite its power struggles with the monarchy, the Orthodox Church is considered sacred in Russian society and Vyatka satisfies this need by appointing a bishop.
• Les Collaborateurs: During World War II and the West Russian War, Vladimir III and many of the Tsarist generals formerly worked with Germany in a bid to overthrow the Bolsheviks and restore the Empire. In the latter conflict, they pushed far enough into Russia that they could cut ties with the Reich and form their own warlord state.
• The Good Kingdom: In the regional stage, Vyatka transitions into a constitutional monarchy and opens an election between the VNS,K-D, and NTS. Further, Tsar Vladimir can align himself with the liberal democrats among his supporters, turning the resurgent Russian Empire into a bastion of democracy. Even the conservative and authoritarian paths could be worse, and avoid many of the excesses of the worst unifiers.
• History Repeats:
  • Much like the past Tsardom before them, Vyatka is plagued by a tangled and confused bureaucracy, which must be cleared out immediately if they are to have any chance of survival.
  • Should Tukhachevsky's WRRF defeat Vyatka, Vladimir and his family are executed in a basement, meeting the same end Tsar Nicholas II and his family did over forty years prior.
• Information Wants to Be Free: This is the reasoning that several anti-government news publications use to justify their articles not only exposing Vladimir's past as a collaborator, but also their research into the rest of the family's history.
• Interservice Rivalry: The military starts out divided and cliquish, to a point where some officers have carried out assassinations against their rivals. To prepare for reunification, the Imperial Council must rein in the quarreling.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople): In this timeline, the city of Vyatka was renamed Rykov by Bukharin's government, instead of Kirov like in real life. It got its old name back when conquered by Vladimir's forces during the West Russian War; if a socialist warlord takes over Vyatka, it will be renamed Rykov again.
• Jumped at the Call: Events such as "Distant Shores" depict news of Vladimir's rule reaching at least one Old Soldier living in exile, who then becomes motivated to migrate to Vyatka so that he may serve the Tsar. It's implied that the same thing happens to many others.
• Merchant City: Located near the river of the same name, Vyatka can potentially become a hub of trade in the wartorn remnants of Russia.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: An investigation into an anti-Semitic attack by the Russian Protective Corps invites a more significant discovery into Vladimir's past, namely his old collaboration with the Germans. This kickstarts a massive controversy that shakes the peoples' belief in the Tsar and requires the government to respond.
• Necessarily Evil:
  • One of the first economic matters Vyatka must tackle is the matter of austerity to prevent economic collapse. In the extreme path, Vyatka will make harsh cuts to civilian matters like infrastructure and healthcare, reducing their budget deficit at the cost of upsetting their people.
  • Vyatka can refuse to limit the Okhrana's powers or oversight of the people, deeming it a necessary system to nip any dissident elements before they become a problem.
• Old Soldier: Vyatka's generals are some of the oldest ones in the game, including a few who were involved in the White Movement. One early set of events involves the very last survivor of the original royal guard, an elderly one-rmed man, showing up to present himself to Vladimir and offer his services, eventually becoming the tsar's friend and confidant. Unfortunately, he perishes shortly before the unification wars begin, taking a bullet preventing an assassination attempt.
• Powder Keg Crowd: Protests threaten to escalate into something worse should Vladimir not do anything about them.
• Pretender Diss: In Komi, a man known as Sergey Taboritsky once found himself in their ranks, believing in the cause of the Tsar and envisioning a Russia restored under the Romanovs. One day, however, he found himself exiled from the territory due to his rather subversive ideas, including the radical belief that Vladimir III is the wrong pretender to the throne.
• Propaganda Machine: Downplayed, at least initially. All newspapers in their territory rely on the government's services and allowance, including anti-governmental publications, and Vladimir has the option to forcibly silence and suppress them to stop their narratives.
• Secret Police: The Russian Empire's Okhrana secret police was reestablished under the leadership of general Boris Smyslovsky. It ensures the stability of Vladimir's regime by spying and arresting anyone who criticizes the Tsar. In the regional stage, the Tsar has the option to either rein the Okhrana in or keep it around.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Nominally united, the White Army debates amongst each other over what kind of government the Tsar should adopt. Some wish for a return of the old monarchical system, others clamor for democracy, and a few even have some fascist sympathies. Reuniting this fractured movement is essential if Vyatka wants to reunify Russia.
• Vodka Drunkenski: In order to boost trade and morale, Vyatka can build the Imperial Vyatka Distillery to mass produce vodka for the Russian people. One of the foci even ruefully acknowledges the stereotype, though it can be downplayed if the alternative focus is taken and the distilled alcohol is instead used to produce quality medical disinfectant in a country that often lacks such supplies.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The White émigrés of Vyatka, while united in their opposition to the Bolsheviks, are rather divided in the how the new monarchy should work. Liberals, conservatives and nationalists alike are battling for Tsar Vladimir's favour.

Vladimir III

Role: Head of State

Party: Russkiy Obshche-Voinskiy Soyuz^note Russian All-Military Union

Ideology: Aristocratic Conservatism^note Despotism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show} Born into exile in 1917, Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov became head of the exiled Imperial Family of Russia in 1938 following the death of his father Kirill Vladimirovich, cousin of the late Tsar Nicholas II.

Residing in Brittany when the Second World War, he soon found himself and his family in German custody. At the "insistence" of German authorities, he soon began collaborating, making radio broadcasts encouraging Russian defection from the Soviet regime. Offered the regency of Ukraine at the end of the war, he turned it down on the grounds that it would unacceptably divide Russia.

Despite the war's end, however, Vladimir could not return to Russia — the Germans were concerned that, like as had happened with Vlasov, his popularity could undermine their rule. It wasn't until the West Russian War that he was able to convince them to permit his rallying a division of monarchists and exiled Whites to lead a wildly successful counteroffensive. As the Wehrmacht offensive stalled, Vladimir's did not, breaking through to establish a pocket of monarchist rule in Russia.

In the years since, the newly-proclaimed Tsar Vladimir III has had little success in expanding that pocket, and has found many domestic headaches besides. Now the Tsar waits, biding his time until the moment where he can strike, and reclaim all of Russia - his by divine birthright.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Vladimir, if captured by a victorious Mikhail Tukhachevsky, will beg for his executioners to spare his wife and daughter. They don't and he has to witness his wife and daughter die before he bleeds out himself.
• The Atoner: Vladimir regrets ever having worked with the Nazis even though he only did so under coercion. He hopes to redeem himself by reuniting Russia and driving out the Nazi invaders.
• Beneath the Mask: Beneath his persona as a wise and confident Tsar who urges his people to not lose hope, Vladimir is a broken man insecure about his past collaboration with the Nazis and suffering from migraines from the pentup stress of ruling. Fortunately, he moves on from his past and the migraines stop when he reunifies Russia, finally content that he's brought his country to greatness.
• Catch-22 Dilemma: Vladimir is aware of the divisions plaguing his administration, yet he can't initially do anything about it directly without upsetting someone and enflaming the squabbles. As such, he has to Take a Third Option by publicly voicing his displeasure with the conflicts, engaging with them without provoking open hostilities.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Vladimir has been drinking a lot to deal with his stress of trying to rule such a war-torn land to the best of his capabilities.
• The Emperor: As the legitimate heir to the Tsars of old, Vladimir wants to restore the Russian Empire. Whether in the form of an absolute or constitutional monarchy is up to him however.
• The Exile: After the Russian Revolution deposed the Romanovs, Vladimir spent his life in exile until he and his family were arrested by the Germans and forced to collaborate with them.
• Good Feels Good: If Gul becomes Prime Minister, Vladimir gets to witness his reforms create an incredibly benevolent constitutional democracy that benefits both Russians and previously oppressed minorities. The confidence he feels eventually alleviates his migraines, signifying his renewed hope that things will get better soon.
• The Good King: Despite his former collaboration with the Germans, Tsar Vladimir is genuinely concerned for the well being of Russia, and is determined to take care well of his subjects one way or other.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: In real life, Vladimir did halfheartedly collaborate with the Nazis (see I Have Your Wife below), but in TNO he invaded Russia with German support, to restore Imperial rule over the country (although not necessarily agreeing with Andrey Vlasov's KONR in Samara).
• I Have Your Wife: As in OTL, Vladimir reluctantly collaborated with the Nazis because they were holding his family hostage in a concentration camp.
• King Bob the Nth: Vladimir III.
• Mercy Kill: If Zhukov defeats Vyatka, Vladimir will be shot by Zhukov's men while trying to flee with his family. After a brief field-trial, Vladimir is shot before he can bleed out.
• Old Shame: His former collaboration with the Germans during the West Russian War is certainly a dark spot that Vladimir would want to forget.invoked
• Outliving One's Offspring: If Vyatka is defeated by Tukhachevsky's WRRF, Vladimir and his wife have to witness their daughter Maria being gunned to death, shortly before they're executed as well.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He previously collaborated with the Germans because they held his family hostage and not out of any sympathy for their ideology. Now that Vyatka has cut ties with them, Vladimir has no further interest in serving them.
• Puppet King: Should Solzhenitsyn's Solidarists win the regional state elections, they will quickly begin to undermine Vyatka's nascent parliamentary democracy, turning Tsar Vladimir into their puppet. The Tsar himself becomes depressed with his predicament and takes painkillers to ease his unending migraines.
• The Quisling: Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov formerly collaborated with the Germans in an attempt to restore the Russian monarchy, due to the Nazis locking his family in a concentration camp. The collaboration between the two was weak and unenthusiastic (and to a large extent still is in this timeline, despite Vladimir now invading Russia with German support). The Tsar is not proud of it, and will have to face it when the information eventually breaks out.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Vladimir doesn't personally approve of Gul's liberal agenda, but he nonetheless allows him to reform the monarchy, especially after he's reassured that his royal privileges won't be taken away.
• Recovered Addict: By game start, Vladimir frequently takes painkillers to deal with his constant migraines. In an event after the Constitutional Democrats unified to the superregional level, he realises that he has not taken a pill in many days, and that he no longer needs to do so anymore, as the new Russian Empire under Prime Minister Gul has turned out far better than the Tsar initially expected.
• Rightful King Returns: Vladimir is the rightful heir to the deposed Russian throne. He recognizes that reuniting Russia under his leadership is a difficult task, but he continues on out of a sense of duty for his people.
• What's Up, King Dude?: In the People's Emperor focus, Tsar Vladimir personally visits villages, talks to his subjects and listens to petitioners across his entire domain, in order to demonstrate that it is the Tsardom, and not the Bolsheviks or the democrats, that is the closest institution to the Russian people, and that while the Tsar might be above everyone else, he is not separate.

Vasily Shulgin

Role: Head of Government (Conservative Vladimir cabinet)

Party: Vserossiyskiy Natsional'nyy Soyuz^note All-Russian National Union

Ideology: Christian Conservatism^note Conservatism

The leader of the All-Russian National Union, a conservative faction in Vyatka.

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• The Assimilator: Shulgin believes that regions of the Empire without a Russian majority should be integrated as regular governorates, following a policy of general Russification, through education, language restriction and the banning of certain cultural practices, though he can choose to ratchet back some of these beliefs and give more opportunities to minorities as a concession.
• Boring, but Practical: His agenda professes the need to return to age-old traditions and only implement token reforms, restoring the status quo of Romanov rule, but offering stability in turn.
• Consolation Prize: In his moderate path, Shulgin can please the liberal-minded politicians by accepting limited reforms that would be needed to stabilize the state.
• Culture Clash: Shulgin was born in Ukraine but identifies himself as someone of Malorussian culture^note Malorussia, meaning Little Russia is an old term for Ukraine in Russian, and does not reconize Ukrainian culture as something any different.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Downplayed. By creating a constitutional monarchy, Shulgin concentrates more power to the premiership than the Tsar, but he doesn't render Vladimir a complete figurehead and gives him enough authority so that he can still influence policy.
• Establishing Character Moment: Shulgin is introduced preparing a speech, proclaiming the glory of the old monarchy and advocating its return to dispel the Russian anarchy, characterizing his admiration of the status quo.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • While he is definitely among the more reactionary conservative democrats in the story, Shulgin hates the Nazis, and unlike many other Tsarist politicians, refused to collaborate with them. And he is a genuine democrat, having supported Nicholas II's resignation.
  • Though he longs for the old days of Tsarist rule, Shulgin is aware of the old monarchy's flaws. Namely, in his moderate path, he fights against nepotism.
• Good Old Ways: Vasily, a former Imperial Russian politician, wants to restore the glory of the Russian Empire of old exactly as he once knew it before the revolutions, and is the most conservative of Vyatka's three potential Prime Ministers. That being said, he is not blind to the fact that the Empire needs to adapt itself to the challenges of the modern era, and is willing to accept some limited reforms.
• Hero-Worshipper: He idolizes Vladimir III and, though he transitions Vyatka into a constitutional monarchy, he allows the Tsar to keep the power to veto any policy passed by the Duma.
• Kicked Up Stairs: In his more radical route, Shulgin "promotes" dissenters to powerless positions so that they won't stand in the way of the conservatives.
• Meet the New Boss: Shulgin aims to restore many of the Tsar's old principles and institutions, bringing Russia back to the status quo before the Russian Revolution.
• Old Retainer: Shulgin is one of the oldest people in the mod, being 82 years old at the start. He has long served the Romanov family as far back as the days of Tsar Nicholas II. He advocates the least amount of change from the monarchy's traditions and, for a brief moment, sees Vladimir as the young boy he once was many decades ago.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Though his views on minorities aren't the most charitable out there, he can hire the local Udmurts to work in the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant, giving them a previously unheard-of opportunity of economic mobility.
  • While constructing the Ufa Arms Plant, Shulgin can offer work programs for the "Little Russians", a Ukrainian minority in the region that fled from Nazi oppression and are in desperate need of money.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Despite his genuinely democratic goals, Shulgin isn't particularly generous towards Russia's ethnic minorities, believing that they need to be Russified at the expense of their own culture. In an optional superregional focus, Shulgin can give settler incentives to Izhevsk, which would encourage the assimilation of the Tatars and Bashkirs, something he considers "laudable".
• Real Men Love Jesus: Shulgin pushes for recognition of the special role the Orthodox Church plays in Russian history.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: It is possible for Shulgin to accept some limited reforms, both to adapt Russia to the modern era and placate the more liberal-minded politicians.

Roman Gul

Role: Foreign Minister (Starting Vladimir cabinet), Head of Government (Liberal Vladimir cabinet)

Party: Konstitutsionno-Demokraticheskaya Partiya^note Constitutional Democratic Party

Ideology: Liberalism

The leader of the Constitutional Democrats, a liberal faction in Vyatka desiring to create a constitutional monarchy.

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• The Atoner: Deeply ashamed of the monarchy's past transgressions, Gul intends modernize and reform it into a more benevolent state.
• The Determinator: Even if he is reassigned to a powerless post by the conservatives, Gul will never give up his crusade against injustice, seen when he fills out a report on discrimination in Komi and gambles that someone with real authority will do something about it.
• Establishing Character Moment: Gul is introduced publicly campaigning for democracy and minority rights, characterizing him as the reformist figure of Vyatka.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: The other reactionary factions of the Tsar don't like Gul, believing that his liberal ideas are incompatible with monarchism. Even Vladimir is wary of his radical agenda.
• The Good Chancellor: Under Prime Minister Gul, the Tsardom will become a truly democratic nation, meant to benefit ethnic minorities and the middle and lower classes, who once faced discrimination and oppression under the old Empire.
• Good Is Not Soft: He is the most benevolent Prime Minister in the Empire, but he also spends several focuses clearing the military of any corruption and modernizing it into a capable fighting force, showing that his Russia is not one to be pushed around.
• Hitler Ate Sugar: Gul's liberal reforms have made him disliked by the conservatives as a quasi-socialist.
• Hope Bringer: His optimistic reformism and promise to guarantee personal liberties makes him a source of hope for many, including Alexander Medvedev.
• Internal Reformist: Gul seeks to reform the Tsardom from within to be a bastion of democracy, with the Tsar as its figurehead.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Though a supporter of the monarchy, Gul does not want it to be blind to its people's woes or the oppression of minorities. He enacts dramatic reforms so that the Tsardom can be an egalitarian state where the citizens can live free of oppression or discrimination.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: If Shulgin's conservatives win the elections, they can reassign Gul to lead a token task force in Syktyvkar, far from the centres of power, if he doesn't want to be forced to retire. Even so, Gul still spends his time fighting against injustice in Komi, doing his best with what little power he has.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: In real life, Roman Gul was a centrist-liberal Russian émigré writer, who criticized the more conservative and tsarist elements of the White Movement. In TNO, Gul became politically active, and is now the leader of the liberal faction in Vyatka.
• Secret Police: Defied. Gul explicitly wants to cut spending on the Okhrana, viewing them as a suppressive and autocratic element that needs to be responsibly leashed.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Role: Head of Government (Paternal Vladimir cabinet)

Party: Narodnno-Trudovoy Soyuz^note National Alliance of Solidarists

Ideology: Solidarism^note Paternalism

The leader of the National Alliance of Solidarists (NTS), a nationalist faction in Vyatka.

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• Bait the Dog: Early on, Solzhenitsyn seems like the moderate compromise between Shulgin and Gul, suggesting that the Orthodox Church's place in Russian history be observed while still avoiding making it a state religion and permitting religious freedom, and opposing Russification policies against ethnic minorities and the banning of distinct cultural practices. Only later on, potentially once the player has let him gain too much power, do his more authoritarian and dangerous qualities begin to emerge.
• Book Burning: Solzhenitsyn supports the wholesale destruction of any literature or objects potentially communist in nature.
• Dawn of an Era: The beginning of Vyatka sees him perform a Rousing Speech depicting this with the restoration of the Russian monarchy.
• Emergency Authority: One of Prime Minister Solzhenitsyn's first acts is to submit legislation to grant himself emergency powers, as he thinks that, without a strong autocrat, it is inevitable that Vyatka will be torn apart by demagoguery, populism, or socialism.
• Establishing Character Moment: Solzhenitsyn is introduced criticizing the myriad flaws of Bukharin's Soviet Union and the old Romanov monarchy, proclaiming that Russia must be reborn under a nationalist regime.
• Evil Reactionary: Solzhenitsyn speaks against liberalization and democracy, viewing it as a weakness that will end up destroying the Tsar again.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: While Solzhenitsyn was already a fairly controversial figure in OTL, in TNO he can potentially become the effective dictator of a reactionary, resurgent Russian Empire.
• Hitler Ate Sugar: Solzhenitsyn's emphasis on nationalism has made him denounced by the conservatives as a quasi-fascist.
• Internal Reformist: Believing that the monarchy must reform to counter the issues it faces in the present day, Solzhenitsyn will restructure the Tsardom to reemphasize religion and promote inter-class solidarity.
• Obliviously Evil: In spite of his dictatorial means, Solzhenitsyn doesn't see himself as a cruel man and thinks that history will vindicate his actions.
• Patriotic Fervor: Solzhenitsyn envisions a reborn Tsardom based on nationalism and hawkish militarism against those who would challenge their strength.
• Pet the Dog:
  • While he doesn't support minority autonomy like Gul, Solzhenitsyn argues against Shulgin's Russification programs, believing that rights to distinct cultural practices should be guaranteed.
  • Solzhenitsyn believes that religious freedom should be permitted, even if the Orthodox Church is acknowledged as the nation's official religion.
• President for Life: If the Solidarists dominate the government, Solzhenitsyn will appoint officials sympathetic to his cause, ensuring that no other faction will obstruct his vision for Russia.
• Red Scare: As Prime Minister, Solzhenitsyn organizes a massive anti-communist crusade, directing the wholesale destruction of anything deemed sympathetic to the ideology. Matters get even worse as hundreds of suspected communists are arrested and interrogated, deemed a threat to the stability of the monarchy.
• Repressive, but Efficient: Despite his authoritarian policies, Solzhenitsyn does effectively rebuild Russia's political, economic, and military might. Under him, Russia is industrializing at a stable rate, education and professionalism are skyrocketing, and the general quality of life is improving for millions.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: In real life, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian author and activist, best known as the author of The Gulag Archipelago, a book criticizing Stalinist Russia (he's also less charitably known for his reactionary and anti-Semitic views, as well as supporting American war hawks during the Cold War and allegedly falsifying historical information). In TNO, Solzhenitsyn is a member of the NTS (a real right-wing Russian nationalist émigré organization), and became its leader after his predecessor, Vladimir Poremsky, fled the party to Komi due to factionalism.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Solzhenitsyn is the most reactionary of the Prime Ministers in Vyatka, but he believes that such measures are necessary to protect Russia from its enemies.

Stepan Alexandrovich Novikov

Role: N/A

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• The Confidant: Novikov is rather chatty for a guard, but he'll willingly hear out Vladimir's problems without any shallow sycophancy.
• Heroic Sacrifice: His last living act is to get in the way of an assassin gunning for Vladimir and sacrificing his life to save the Tsar.
• Old Retainer: He was personally selected to serve in Nicholas II's Imperial Guard, fought on Vladimir III's side during the West Russian War, and escaped capture and torture by the Soviets so he could return to Vladimir's service. Though the monarchists have been reduced to a small warlord state, Novikov has faith that the Romanovs will return to power again one day and personally joins Vladimir's Life Guard.
• Old Soldier: Novikov is the oldest member of the Life Guard, yet can work even harder than most men half his age.
• Undying Loyalty: Novikov has been loyal to the Romanov family for over four decades, not even wavered when hundreds of his comrades fled during the Russian Revolution.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Mere months after being appointed to the Life Guard, Novikov perishes when he gets in the way of an assassin's bullet, saving Vladimir III's life.

Samara

^{Flag of the Provisional Commissariat of Western Russia}

Official Name: Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, Provisional Commissariat of Western Russia (regional unification), Russian Republic (Zykov or Bunyachenko superregional unification), Russian State (Oktan superregional unification)

Ruling Party: Komitet Osvobozhdeniya Narodov Rossii^note Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

A state controlled by the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (KONR), an anti-Soviet government composed of ex-Soviet German collaborators headed by General Andrey Vlasov. Abandoned by Germany after the West Russian War, the KONR continues on its miserable path to reunite Russia, uncertain in their future.

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• Anti-Villain: Though morally villainous due to their past of betraying their own country, the KONR has some sympathetic traits, and has some more morally upright individuals in its large tent of collaborators. While none of them can be considered good unifiers for Russia, only Oktan is among the worst, and the fact that if they are defeated history will only remember them as vile and loathsome traitors without nuance is treated as a tragedy.
• Army of Thieves and Whores: Under Oktan's corrupt direction, the ROA devolves into a petty band of criminals and cutthroats who loot and abuse the people they're ostensibly supposed to protect.
• Becoming the Mask: With sufficient effort, the ROA can potentially rehabilitate itself into genuinely living up to its own rhetoric and serving the people of Russia.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Even on their most despotic and oppressive routes, the KONR and its military wing, the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) still claim to be a force of liberation for the people of Russia.
• Les Collaborateurs: Andrey Vlasov and his Russian collaborationist volunteers used to work with the Nazis to liberate Russia from the Bolsheviks. Their relationship with Germany has waned significantly however, and all of his successors will distance themselves from Germany eventually.
• Commissar Cap: Samara leaders spot some of the most impressive peaked caps in the whole of Russia. Bunyachenko and Oktan in particular will don even larger caps (based on the style of the OTL Russian Federation, which has a spot in the Real Life section of this trope) as they progress in the 1970s.
• Commonality Connection: In a local bar, several ROA members encounter soldiers from Vyatka, but they briefly have a positive interaction when they begin sharing stories about their military service and terrible living circumstances. Unfortunately, it doesn't last when a dispute rises over whether the ROA or the Tsar is the rightful government of Russia.
• The Coup: In the regional stage, some units of the ROA will mutiny against Vlasov's selected successor, if their loyalty is low enough. This allows one of the other possible successors to take charge instead, either by working with the other successor or seizing power themselves.
• Defacement Insult: Disdained by some of their citizens as German bootlickers, the ROA's propaganda posters are defaced with bright red messages reading "Down with the Traitors!"
• Dub Name Change: In the original English version, the name of Russia under Oktan is "Russian State". In the Russian version, it is "Russian Federation".
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite having once collaborated with Germany, they have nothing but contempt for the Aryan Brotherhood. It really says a lot that even Oktan calls them "freaks".
• Friendly Enemy: The Contraband Station is one of the few places where Moskowien garrison soldiers and ROA smugglers can meet and exchange friendly talk with each other, despite formally being enemies.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The ROA start out as German cannon fodder who are easily written off as expendable when they defect during the West Russian War. However, in the hands of Zykov and Bunyachenko, the ROA evolves into a competent fighting force capable of reunifying Russia under their banner.
• Hated by All: To many across Russia and some outside of it, Samara is one of the traitorous states that had a key role in the downfall of the Soviet Union and Germany's victory. The text accompanying the announcement of their defeat reads, "The traitors will never get to tell their side of the story." Even if they reach the regional stage, surviving communists and ethnic nationalists will launch terrorist attacks in protest to their rule. However, Zykov and Bunyachenko seek to overcome this status by reunifying Russia and showing that the ROA is still capable of doing good.
• Join or Die: Some members of the ROA joined because they were former Red Army officers who were captured and given the choice to either collaborate or perish in a POW camp. Several common soldiers were even forcibly drafted at literal gunpoint by the Nazis.
• The Kingslayer: The ROA will judge and execute Tsar Vladimir after they conquer Vyatka, declaring him a self-serving autocrat who doesn't care about the people and betrayed the nation. How hypocritical this declaration is depends on who is leading the ROA, and how bad Vyatka is doing themselves.
• Knowledge Broker: Thanks to his vast web of informants and deep pockets, Oktan can keep tabs on those who would dare plan a mutiny or betrayal.
• Motive Decay: Originally, the ROA collaborated with the Germans to create a republic against the Bolshevik government they hated so much. However, stuck in the anarchy of Russia, some officers, led by Bunyachenko, have abandoned this mission and want to continue the military junta they've created.
• Multinational Team: The ROA is full of non-Russians. Bunyachenko and Zykov are both Ukrainian, Oktan constantly claims to come from another country, and some soldiers are explicitly mentioned to be Greek or Polish.
• Obliviously Evil: Even though the ROA turns a dark path when Oktan succeeds Vlasov, they remain convinced that they are helping the people, which makes it incredibly awkward when they proclaim this to villagers who clearly don't buy it.
• People's Republic of Tyranny: This group of ex-Nazi collaborators officially style themselves the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (from 'Bolshevik tyranny'), but are not better than the Bolsheviks are by any means. If the KONR reunifies the western half of Russia while not being led by Oktan, they form the Russian Republic, which is either a sham democratic republic with a tightly controlled opposition (Zykov) or a strongman military dictatorship with no democracy and some benevolent tendencies (Bunyachenko).
• Pet the Dog: The ROA helps out local farmers in their harvests in order to build whatever trust they can have with the Russian people. Granted, it's so that they can take some of the harvest with them, but they do legitimately want to help them and have a positive relationship with the farmers.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • The KONR helps the Russian villages repair the damage left behind the Luftwaffe bombings to garner more popular support for itself.
  • In the face worker strikes, the local garrison commander chooses not to intervene immediately because it would be a PR disaster if the recruits were to fire upon them.
• The Puppet Cuts His Strings: Zykov and Bunyachenko, should they reunify Western Russia, will sever their ties with Germany and cultivate a new Russian nationalist image, and will aim to go to war with Germany to liberate the Russians under German rule.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Unifying West Russia is the first half of the battle. After that is achieved, Vlasov's successor will need to contend with mutinous ROA units and insurrections against the hated former collaborators.
• Quantity Versus Quality: Before reunifying West Russia, Samara is reliant on Armaments Factory no.14 to mass produce weapons. Though inferior to professionally crafted weapons, they are cheap enough to arm the entire military, which is all the high command wants.
• The Quisling: Enlisted by Germany during the West Russian War, the ROA was promised to lead a new Russian state if they helped, even allowing to found KONR as an eventual Puppet State from the areas taken by Germany.
• Redemption Quest: If Zykov (and to a lesser extent, Bunyachenko) work hard enough to unify and rebuild Russia, they can throw off their negative image of collaborators and traitors and build up people's trust, and eventually create a livable, if flawed, country for the Russian people to live in.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Despite their former allegiance to Germany, Samara still gets bombed by Luftwaffe pilots on a regular basis, like other states in the region.
• Shown Their Work: The flag of the Provisional Commissariat of Western Russia is actually a real and very obscure flag used by the Russian Liberation Army as an insignia.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Nominally united, the KONR is factionalized between Bunyachenko, Zykov, and Oktan. Vlasov's designated successor will need to sideline the other two in order to hold onto their power.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: A small, but growing minority of ROA soldiers are fighting to vent their frustrations over being mistreated and forced into their current, miserable predicament.

Andrey Vlasov

Role: Military Commander, Head of State

Party: Komitet Osvobozhdeniya Narodov Rossii^note Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show} The very name of Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov, the turncoat Red Army general, remains a sensitive topic for many Russians. To his few supporters, Vlasov is a modern-day Ivan Kalita, a visionary ruler who wisely submitted to a militarily superior conqueror, then used their patronage to gain a foothold for a powerful and independent Russian state in the future. For most of the former Soviet citizens, however, his name is associated with the most heinous betrayal, comparable to that of Judas. Of course, the real character of Vlasov is far less poetic than that. It is hard to say whether the disgraced general was driven by his sincere desire to pierce the Red menace with German bayonets or a simple urge to survive when he allied himself with the Nazis; but whatever motive he had, the German high command never considered him a noteworthy ally, only allowing him to silently gaze upon his country being trampled beneath the German boot from well behind the front lines. The last chance for Vlasov to redeem himself both in the eyes of Germans and the eyes of the Russian people appeared during the West Russian War, when his Russian Liberation Army helped turn the tide against the West Russian Revolutionary Front's offensive. Even though it was Vlasov who helped beat back the Soviets, obtaining his own domain in Samara in the aftermath, the Germans still saw him as little more than a dog to be kept on a short chain and closely watched. Humiliated by his masters and unpopular among his once-trustworthy officers, who have started to view his servile demeanor an obstacle to liberating Russia, Vlasov remains a weak and isolated figure who can only hope that reclaiming Russia will absolve his miserable title of a loathsome traitor.

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• 0% Approval Rating: He's hated by the rest of Russia as a modern-day Judas and most of his own subordinates dislike his indecisiveness, blaming him for the ROA's failures. When he dies, only a few token supporters mourn for him and everyone else is completely neutral, either hiding their contempt or expressing total apathy.
• Affluent Ascetic: Vlasov has removed the luxuries from his office and living quarters in an attempt to stave off his guilt.
• Ambiguous Situation: It's unknown if he allied with the Nazis out of a shared enmity with the Bolsheviks or simply out of self-preservation. Either way, Vlasov regrets ever collaborating with Germany and hopes to redeem himself one day.
• Contempt Crossfire: Nobody likes Vlasov. Most Russians hate Vlasov because he's a traitor. His underlings dislike him because he is too servile and an obstacle to their goals of an anticommunist Russian liberation. The Germans don't consider him a noteworthy ally, and ignore him most of the time.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Vlasov continues to lead the KONR and fight to reunify Russia under their lead, but has no idea what he's actually fighting for, and what his legacy will be. Nobody remembers him positively, if they even know and remember him at all. His nihilistic and meaningless existence is taking a toll on him, making him depressed and drinking a lot to cope.
• Do Not Go Gentle: Lacking the popularity to ever lead a coalition of his own, Vlasov resolves to throw his support behind one of the ROA factions to determine its direction before he's gone.
• Driven to Suicide: Subverted. At one point, Vlasov briefly considers killing himself out of remorse for his past treachery, but changes his mind and goes to sleep instead.
• Dying Alone: While his eventual death is treated with some reverence, most within the KONR's territories either ignore it altogether or give a half-baked nod at best. At the end, it seems as though only Bunyachenko and Zykov genuinely respected him.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even he is disgusted by the cowardice of one ROA member, Dmitry Zakutnyy. Everyone else in the ROA expressed some hesitance about collaborating with the Germans and only did so under threat of death, but Zakutnyy joined them with zero questions asked because he considered himself "too good" to be a POW.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Vlasov doubts whether he could truly atone for his actions, given how he's close to death's door. He eventually dies before being able to achieve this.
• Historical Hero Upgrade: An in-universe example from Bunyachenko, who must play up Vlasov as a tragic hero who fought for the good of Russia, while downplaying his collaboration with the Germans.
• King on His Deathbed: Vlasov is old and sick, and is expected to die soon; he will pass away after Samara unifies West Russia, and pass on the position of leadership to his appointed successor.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Vlasov is still haunted with guilt over betraying his homeland by collaborating with the Germans. He's tried to drink and clear his office of any luxuries to cope wtih his shame, but to no avail.
• Passed in Their Sleep: After Samara reunifies West Russia, Vlasov will pass away in his sleep, officially passing control over to his designated successor.
• Passing the Torch: Unpopular and nearly on death's doorstep, Vlasov is expected to handpick a successor for the rest of KONR to follow when he dies.
• Puppet King: Nominally head of KONR, Vlasov was little more than a lapdog to the Germans when he collaborated with them.
• The Quisling: Vlasov is the head of the Russian Liberation Army, and formerly collaborated with the Nazis to bring Russia under his control.
• Regretful Traitor: Vlasov originally defected to the Germans either because he wanted to liberate Russia from the Bolshevik oppressors, or because he wanted to save his own skin during a war that went horribly for Russians. In either case, he hates the situation that collaboration got him in by 1962, a powerless general that nobody has a positive view of. He hopes that by actually liberating Russia and building a good legacy, he can absolve his miserable title of a loathsome traitor.
• The Rival: Vlasov was once the chief rival of Bronislav Kaminski, a fellow Russian collaborator who led the Russian National Liberation Army, before he was abandoned by the Germans during the West Russian War.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He dies within the first few years of the game and largely remains out of the spotlight after he names a successor, but he was the one to found the ROA in the first place.

Sergey Bunyachenko

^{70s Bunyachenko portrait}

Role: Military Commander, Head of Government (Despot Vlasov cabinet), Head of State (Vlasov succession)

Party: Komitet Osvobozhdeniya Narodov Rossii^note Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia

Ideology: Civilian Dictatorship^note Despotism

60's In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Few men have contributed as much to the success of the Russian Liberation Army as much as Sergey Kuzmich Bunyachenko. A soldier of the Red Army since the age of 16, he saw combat in more fronts and battles than most, both in the Russian Civil War and in the Second World War. He would be a leading commander in the Caucasus, yet would find difficulty in turning the tide of war. Back at home, Bukharin's regime found him as a perfect scapegoat to blame the failures of the Red Army on, even if he was not the one to blame for the complete failure of the Soviet Union to defend itself. Soon, though, during a brave counter-attack, his division would be encircled and he would be captured. Bunyachenko would remain in a penal colony separated from society until the infamous West Russian War. That was when he would request from the government he was at the mercy of to join in the fight against the WRRF and avenge the communists, who he harbored so much hatred for. He would fight bravely on the side of Vlasov and the Russian Liberation Army, until the ROA coalesced into its own warlord state in Samara. There, he would play a key role in governing the region and raising a proper military. This would eventually earn him a high position in the government, becoming Minister of Defense. With the death of Vlasov, Bunyachenko has managed to rise to power in Samara. A militarist, Bunyachenko will not stop until the communists, and perhaps the Germans to the west as well, are dealt with. As the head of the KONR, he is glad to use it as long as it serves its interests. However, should he deem the committee to be an ineffective organ, Bunyachenko might have no problem with assuming control.

70's In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Sergey Kuzmich Bunyachenko's life has been one of war without end. Having done the impossible and secured all of Russia under his control, Bunyachenko now fights a final, terrible struggle: the battle for legacy.

Under his watch an ordered society has taken shape within Russia. For many, president Bunyachenko is the lawgiver, the man who has given them homes, given their children schools, given their elderly parents pensions. His most loyal supporters are found within the ROA, the once despised German organized militia Bunyachenko found himself helping to lead during the West Russian War. For the ROA veterans Bunyachenko has brought them respect, purpose, and the dream of going home, of going west.

For many, this legacy of hope and progress rests precariously on a bed of lies, blood and ashes. Thousands of people once aligned with communist factions have disappeared. They are joined each week by dozens of those who agitate for workers' rights, for democracy, for accountability by a government and president who sees the population as naught but cogs within a military-industrial complex gone out of control. His harshest critics mock the former German dog as having replicated Moskowien's unfree society, at a much larger scale.

Sergey Bunyachenko fights for legacy. He dreams of washing the sins of his past, of being remembered as one of Russia's greatest patriots instead of as one of its greatest traitors. Yet as the weight of years grows on his shoulders, the military president increasingly fears that no man can be truly free from the crimes of the past. No matter what, however, Bunyachenko stands tall. He will face his fate heads on, fighting for his legacy until the very end.

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• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • Bunyachenko's use of Kombinats (which the developers compare to the South Korean Chaebol megacorporations) to facilitate rapid economic growth is highly reminiscent of South Korean military dictator Park Chung-hee.
  • Bunyachenko defecting from Germany had a historical basis: he historically switched sides during the 1945 Prague uprising, where he was convinced by the Czech Resistance to help them subdue the Germans.
• Anti-Villain: He rules like a dictator, and thinks that the citizens serve the military-industrial complex and not the other way around. However, he does turn the army into a legitimate force to defend the people.
• At Least I Admit It: Bunyachenko personally admits that his rule is dictatorial, but believes his autocratic regime is a necessary evil for Russia's survival.
• Bread and Circuses: When the people complain of the ROA's rule in the pre-regional stage, Bunyachenko distributes food to placate them without actually addressing the reasons why they are so unpopular.
• Consolation Prize: Bunyachenko allows opposition parties to develop in the lower house of parliament, giving them the token privilege to complain about the ROA's rule, but lacking the necessary power to actually do something about it.
• The Cynic: He rejects Zykov's idealistic dream of a Russian democracy, chastising him as ignorant of the harsh reality around him and the sorry state of the ROA. In his mind, the officer's committee is best suited to the job of reunifying Russia.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Needing Zykov's skills as a propagandist, Bunyachenko appeals to their shared enmity with the communist warlord states in West Russia, arguing that if they don't work together, there won't be a Russia for them to advance either of their goals.
  • In the regional stage, Bunyachenko garners support from pro-democratic ROA members so that they can eliminate Oktan's faction of hardline fascists.
  • Bunyachenko courts favor from the Japanese by inviting foreign investments and buying their technology, using their wealth to prepare Russia against the common enemy, Germany.
• Et Tu, Brute?: If Oktan coups Bunyachenko, the latter is betrayed and held at gunpoint by his two oldest friends, Arkady Popov and Alexey Antonov. As he's led out, Bunyachenko can dejectedly asks how much Oktan paid them to turn on him.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Bunyachenko is a family man, who despite all of his authoritarianism, still tries to build a better economy for Russia so his children can grow up in a better nation.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • He has no patience for Oktan due to his corruption and slavish collaboration with the Germans. If Bunyachenko is appointed Vlasov's successor, he'll demote Oktan so that he's no longer a threat.
  • Though he is a military man, he disapproves of its politicization, believing that the army and government should have specifically delineated roles that must not be crossed. In the superregional stage, he retires any old generals serving in both the military and politics.
• Face Death with Dignity: If Omsk defeats Samara and puts the ROA's leadership to death, Bunyachenko climbs the steps onto the gallows with an air of solemn acceptance. Although surprised by how he's not granted last words, he doesn't seem especially bothered, and silently accepts death, stolid and emotionless.
• Fallen Hero: Bunyachenko was a veteran in the Red Army, having fought for them since he was 16 during the Russian Civil War, and during WWII he was a leading commander on the Caucasus front. However, he got screwed over by the Soviet Union and was used as a scapegoat for the failures of the Red Army^note In real life, Bunyachenko almost got sentenced to death (later commuted to 10 years in the gulags) when he blew up a bridge under orders, only for some of the Red Army to get cut off because he blew up the bridge, and the command blamed him for this "failure". After getting encircled and captured by the Germans, he lost faith in the Soviet Union and joined the ROA during the West Russian War to put an end to the Soviets.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: In the Red Army, Bunyachenko became an easy target to pin their failures on and, when he was captured by the Germans, few cared about it.
• The Generalissimo: Although he will step down from the military after cementing his control, as signified by his ideology being Civilian Dictatorship rather than Military Junta, if Bunyachenko reunifies Russia, he will become a dictator who curries favor from foreign superpowers like US and Japan and maintains control through authoritarianism, only making token reforms to maintain his republican image and maintaining tight control over the military. Tellingly, unlike even Zhukov, he never changes out of his military uniform after taking charge, even into his 70's portrait.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Though subordinate to Vlasov, Bunyachenko is far more popular and his command of the officer corps is critical to Samara's survival.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • He refuses to apologize for the ROA's collaboration with the Nazis, stating that they did what they had to liberate all Russians and took any help they could get.
  • Bunyachenko implements his oppressive policies and harsh economic developmental measures not for their own sakes, but because in his mind it is important that the current generation of Russians build a strong future and foundation for their children, no matter how much they need to suffer now so said children don't have to.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: He brushes off accusations that he is a military dictator as a misconception. In the very next sentence, he calls himself the "first among equals, obeyed out of admiration rather than fear. At least, not yet".
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Bunyachenko may be a ruthless dictator, but he at least compensates this by creating a powerful Russian state from his repression. As such, he's the more sympathetic figure in his internal struggle for power against Oktan, who is both tyrannical and doesn't care a wit for his people.
• Meet the New Boss: Downplayed. Bunyachenko presents himself as the rightful successor to Vlasov and his perceived vision for Russia.
• MegaCorp: Bunyachenko creates a system of "Kombinats", a set of government-allied businesses who are directly fueled by the government and made into industrial juggernauts covering both horizontal and vertical expansions.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Bunyachenko was content to accept Germany's offer of joining the ROA out of anger towards the Soviet leadership blaming the military's early defeats on him.
• No OSHA Compliance: Worker safety is not a priority to Bunyachenko, with one event mentioning a worker falling into a furnace because the Kombinats didn't build proper railings. Unfortunately, nobody has the right to complain about this without facing arrest or police brutality in retribution.
• No Sympathy: Bunyachenko has little sympathy for those who demand greater labor rights, casting all of them as "useful idiots for communist remnants" who must be monitored.
• Perpetual Frowner: He always has a grim expression on his face, the result of decades of loss and depression. The only time he ever perks up is when he discusses his hatred for communism and Germans.
• Pet the Dog:
  • When distributing food to satisfy the populace, Bunyachenko is as fair as he can possibly be, ensuring that no one goes without a meal.
  • Sympathetic to the plights of the veteran soldiers, Bunyachenko grants them generous pensions so they can retire early and not live another day without a proper meal or roof over their head.
  • While everyone who can work is made to labor in the giant steel factories of the Kombinats, those who can't actually receive relatively high-quality nationalized healthcare.
  • In the superregional stage, Bunyachenko rewards his soldiers with some vacation time so that they can rest up before the next war comes up.
• Pragmatic Villainy: If chosen as Vlasov's successor, Bunyachenko will reconcile with Zykov's faction, albeit by rendering them powerless and using them to convince the people that the ROA is a force for good.
• The Puppet Cuts His Strings: Bunyachenko starts off as a puppet mouthpiece of the KONR officers' committee and represents their interests to Vlasov. He quickly drops this however after uniting to regionals and superregionals.
• Repressive, but Efficient: Bunyachenko's Russian Republic is one of the most economically and industrially powerful among all possible unifiers, and stands a relatively good chance in the Second West Russian War (second only to the ultra-militaristic types like Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Dmitry Yazov), but is not a good place to live, where democracy does not exist, workers enjoy few rights or safety regulations and are forced to toil long hours in the factories of the Kombinats, and people are seen as but cogs within a military-industrial complex.
• The Scapegoat: When he served in the Red Army, Bunyachenko became the big scapegoat for the Soviet Union to blame for the army's failures. Such abuse eventually drove him to join the ROA to exact revenge on them.
• Secret Police: Bunyachenko founds the National Security Service to monitor domestic and foreign matters so that everyone in Russia is loyal to the government.
• Understatement: His industrialization plans are planned by the "committee for national industrial development", understating Bunyachenko's ambitious plans to unify Russia and turn it into a world-class industrial power.
• The Unfettered: Bunyachenko is a strongman dictator who will stop at nothing to forge Russia into a mighty regional power, no matter what injustice he has to commit.
• Villain with Good Publicity: After reunifying Russia, Bunyachenko is hailed as a respected hero who protects his people, ignorant of the human rights abuses he commits under his regime.
• War Hero: He's one of the most veteran commanders of the ROA, having served in the military since the Russian Civil War, when he was only 16 years old.

Miletiy Zykov

Role: Head of Government (Paternal Vlasov cabinet), Head of State (Vlasov succession)

Party: Komitet Osvobozhdeniya Narodov Rossii^note Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia, Yedinstvo^note Unity (superregional unification)

Ideology: Controlled Democracy^note Paternalism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Miletiy Alexandrovich Zykov has been the heart and the conscience of the Russian Liberation Movement - if one can call such a scattered congregation of Vlasovite generals and civilian figures that was assembled under the auspices of the Nazi invaders a 'movement'. Recognized for his talent as a propagandist, Zykov was the person who shaped the ideology of the Russian Liberation Army and put forward the democratic ideals that proved to be so important in the struggle against the Soviet tyranny. Even if those ideals were obscured by the necessities of war, Zykov consistently espoused his support for renewed Russian democracy and provided much-needed legitimacy to the otherwise doomed cause of serving the occupants and the occupied alike. The past and true motives of Zykov remain an unresolvable enigma even to his colleagues. His contradictory, often nonsensical comments about himself only further widen the web of rumors that has enveloped his background. Claiming to be a former adjutant of Nikolai Bukharin and supporter of the Marxist thought, Zykov prefers to imagine himself as an adherent of Russian republicanism who saw the inevitable failure of Bolshevism. Meanwhile, his numerous opponents within the KONR depict Zykov as a dishonest opportunist, a lowly Bolshevik Jewish writer who defected to the ROA only to save his skin and has since capitalized on a populist appeal and an idealistic facade to expand his personal influence. Being one of the closest people to Andrey Vlasov and one of his most avid supporters, Zykov achieved the favor of the old General to pursue his own bid for power in the ROA after Vlasov's death. Whenever his beliefs lie, he now has to trial them between the hammer of the old guard resisting his seditious rhetoric and the anvil of his share and burden as a traitor.

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• Ambiguously Evil: Zykov's tight controls against "radicalism" and his flip-flopping policies on opening and restricting democracy raises doubts on his true beliefs; it's unknown whether he's a genuine democrat who sincerely believes that his restrictive policies are better for Russia, or an opportunist using an image of democracy to maintain power.
• Bait the Dog: In the superregional stage, Zykov has a moderate path where he can allow eastern democratic parties to run, seemingly setting him back on track to a genuine democracy. Only for the next focus to invalidate this with Zykov committing a little "district reshuffling" and bribes to ensure that Yedinstvo can have an advantage there.
• Berserk Button: Military men holding monopolies is a big one for Zykov, being the only thing that can get him legitimately angry.
• Beware the Nice Ones: One of the nicer and more sentimental members of the ROA, but he also makes it clear that he won't tolerate dissidents and immediately moves to eliminate them if they don't heed his warning. He lives up to his threat when some agitators refuse to accept ROA control over West Russia, where he unleashes his soldiers to have them executed.
• Blatant Lies: In his moderate path, Zykov sends his supporters to West Siberia to pose as natives of the region and lie about their backgrounds to make the Unity Party seem more palatable. One particular politician is commanded to claim that he served in the WRRF, despite actually having collaborated with the Germans.
• Corrupt Politician: Zykov is perhaps the most corrupt among Russia's potential liberal leaders, and can resort to all sorts of underhanded tactics like backroom deals and gerrymandering to ensure that the ROA remains in power.
• Dark Horse Victory: His radical ideals and optimism have made him a controversial figure in the ROA, with many considering him an unlikely designated heir to Vlasov.
• Defector from Decadence: He dubiously claims to have been a former Bukharinite who defected from the ideology when he witnessed its failures. Whether that's true or not is a mystery.
• Enemy Mine:
  • When he is chosen as Vlasov's successor, Zykov reaches out to Bunyachenko and the officer's committee to reconcile their goals, arguing that they must remain united against the shared communist and German threat.
  • In his diplomatic ventures, Zykov turns to the United States and the OFN so that they can aid his eventual push into Moskowien when the time comes.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Zykov is one of the few ROA members who haven't lost sight of their original democratic goals, which has made him disliked by most of the organization, including Bunyachenko's apolitical faction.
• Historical In-Joke: Yedinstvo shares its name with a social democratic party in the Russian Provisional Government, mirroring Zykov's claims of being a follower of the February Revolution.
• History Repeats: At the end of his campaign, it's revealed that the Unity Party's factionalism has reached a new height as militarists clash with democracy activists, while another faction led by Vasily Arkhipov is gunning to take the presidency themselves. Zykov openly acknowledges that this is a repeat of the past factionalism that plagued the ROA.
• Hypocrite:
  • Zykov has ambitions to create a liberal democratic republic, but, as Bunyachenko comments, he had no problem working with the Nazis and abetting to their crimes to achieve that dream.
  • When he finally creates his desired democratic government, Zykov balks at the idea of a "fully representative" democracy, resorting to gerrymandering and private deals so that the ROA remains the dominant political force. In the superregional stage, he can amplify this hypocrisy further by applying the same corrupt tactics in the eastern territories.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Zykov is aware of how his underhanded tactics and authoritarian policies run contrary to his own rhetoric of restoring democracy to Russia. He believes such measures, however, necessary to set the groundwork for it to take root.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Despite the hypocrisy of his authoritarian and undemocratic tactics, Zykov views them as a necessary measure to bring peace and stability to Russia.
  Unfortunate, but sometimes a democracy must sacrifice its freedoms for the sake of stability.
• The Idealist: The most idealistic member of the ROA, still holding true to their vision of a democratic Russia.
• Internal Reformist:
  • If Zykov wins the power struggles, he will reform the KONR from the inside, demilitarizing their rule and making it more democratic and accountable to the people.
  • In Zykov's Russia, former Vyatkan general Nikolay Rumyantsev (better known under his French name IRL, Nicolas Roumiantzoff) will found his own center-left party, the Russian Movement of Democratic Reform, advocating for more liberal policies than Zykov.
• Kicked Upstairs: If Bunyachenko was chosen as Vlasov's successor, Zykov will be promoted to an even more prestigious propaganda job that has no official power, since his oratory skills will make for good PR.
• A Lighter Shade of Grey: Zykov engages in dubious and immoral behavior that undermines his original democratic vision, but the nation he builds is far less oppressive than the one from Bunyachenko and especially Oktan.
• Long Game: Well aware of how weak and despised the ROA is, Zykov prepares for Russian unification by picking on those weaker than themselves and slowly building Samara's power until they can strike against the Tsar and the communist warlords.
• Mysterious Past: To his contemporaries, Zykov's backstory and his true endgame are an absolute enigma. While modern historical research indicated that Zykov in OTL was a Jewish writer and prisoner of war, people around him can only make guesses about his personality, those ranging from Zykov being a genuine Menshevik republican to a well-spoken opportunist to a Bolshevik infiltrator who seeks to undermine the KONR.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Zykov advocates for lower taxes, as it will repair their already terrible reputation in the long-term and project themselves as genuine liberators.
  • Addressing civilian opposition to the ROA, Zykov proposes hearing them out to build legitimacy for their government, establishing tribunals to rein in soldier abuses and building military-civilian community councils to protect the villages.
  • The Zykov plan is an economic campaign that will industrialize Samara and make it a more desirable place to live in for the common citizen.
  • After succeeding Vlasov, Zykov passes reforms to benefit the common Russian, such as redistributing confiscated land to farmers and establishing a social net so the disadvantaged are guaranteed housing and healthcare.
• President for Life: Zykov's Russian Republic is ostensibly a democracy with free elections, but the controlled opposition is far too weak to beat Zykov's party, and anyone whose opinion is too radical is arrested. He is eventually outright declared "president for life" at the superregional stage.
• Propaganda Machine: He is the chief propagandist of the ROA, continuing to emphasize their mission for liberation against the Bolsheviks and the Germans.
• The Purge: Zykov purges the military of its old guard so that he can replace them with younger, democratic officers who will depoliticize the army.
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: Frustrated that the Unity Party's disunity hampers its efficiency, Zykov streamlines the party by reconciling some of the interest groups' goals.
• Redeeming Replacement: Zykov sees himself, and his democratic ideals, as this to Vlasov in his quest to redeem the ROA as anything other than Nazi collaborators.
• Repressive, but Efficient: While Zykov resorts to anti-democratic practices when he takes power, he does found a safe and prosperous Russian state where the people can live a peaceful, if not exactly free, existence.
• Sinister Surveillance: Zykov reorganizes the ROA's security apparatus and network of informants into a bureau called the Ministry of Truth. While not a Secret Police agency, the ministry is responsible for maintaining a deep network of informants to subtly maintain Zykov's control over the country.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Unity Party he founds is heavily plagued by factionalism based on the conflicting interests of several groups. Specifically, the ROA wants to turn away from democracy, the businesses want a centralized government to protect their investments, and the democrats want a full liberalization of the government. Zykov will need to balance their interests to keep the party together.
• Token Good Teammate: Zykov leads a faction of the KONR that actually advocates for democracy, rather than keeping the status quo of a military junta. If his Russian Republic succeeds in unification, the event says international observers call the resulting election "mostly fair," and while he does not have socialist sympathies he can implement trade unions and other pro-worker, anti-poverty programs.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: He believes that his democracy should be considered fully functional because the opposition party is allowed to criticize him without being harassed by the secret police.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Zykov is a genuine anti-Bolshevik Republican who is willing to collaborate with the Germans (even though he's Jewish himself) so he can end Bolshevism and create his vision of a liberal Russia.
• What's Up, King Dude?: In the pre-regional stage, Zykov personally listens to the complaints about the issues they face on a daily basis, which he uses to inform his upcoming reforms and earn some good publicity.

Mikhail Oktan

^{70s Oktan portrait}

Role: Head of Government (National Socialist Vlasov cabinet), Head of State (Vlasov succession)

Party: Komitet Osvobozhdeniya Narodov Rossii^note Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia

Ideology: Naturalised National Socialism^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Charitably described as a 'complete bastard', Mikhail Alexandrovich Ilinich's ascendancy to the position of Chairman of the KONR marks the beginning of a new and dark chapter in Russia's story. Known by his pseudonym Oktan, he's cynical, manipulative and professing a slavish loyalty to the Reich, it is no surprise that he found his calling in managing the unruly Russians on behalf of his masters - first as a newspaper editor and self-proclaimed governor, then as chief propagandist of the KONR. Under his supervision, propaganda efforts after the West Russian War were ramped up tenfold, reeling in thousands of fervently anti-Bolshevik followers while driving out those loyal to a feeble, 'free' vision of Russia. Few would have foreseen his sudden rise to power, however. Once, Oktan was known as little more than a vicious, treasonous, anti-semitic drunk. Even in the early days, Oktan despised Vlasov for his softness and lack of radicalism, alienating the would-be dictator from his colleagues. His sniveling appeasement of the Germans and desperation to enter the ranks of the Russian Liberation Army's leadership ensured that when he finally began to climb the ranks, he faced staunch opposition from the camps of Zykov and Bunyachenko. His rivals spared no effort informing the people of his cowardice, laziness and lecherous conduct, but that effort came to naught. Now, they say nothing. Those who dare to whisper of Oktan's disloyalty to the Smolensk Declaration and the principles of the KONR soon find themselves arrested to face 're-education' - or worse. Having learned much from his past friendship with the Gestapo, Oktan has proven merciless and brutal in the suppression of his opposition and unwillingness to compromise on anything that might jeopardize his absolute rule. As a man who once enjoyed the full confidence of the Germans, there is no telling what horrors Oktan's rule might have in store for the people of Russia.

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• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: By the time he finishes conquering Russia, Oktan is financing a vast pyramid of bribery and corruption. His unification event describes his clique as "rich beyond comprehension". In particular, if Oktan purges Bunyachenko, a pair of Bunyachenko's oldest friends betray him. "How much did Oktan offer you?" "He offered enough."
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Oktan and his band rule Russia like feudal overlords, as they are each given a territory to govern and extract resources from for the central government.
• Arms Dealer:
  • As the most prominent of the actively pro-German members of the KONR, Oktan runs an extensive smuggling network that siphons weapons out of the Einheitspakt via Moskowien.
  • When Oktan begins his nuclear weapons program, he tours the facilities with his financial adviser to figure out what price he can fetch for the tech.
• Asshole Victim: If Zykov retains power from the ROA mutiny, he orders Oktan's arrest without trial, where he is taken to an isolated barn and shot.
• Bad Boss: Oktan doesn't take kindly to failure or treason. When he discovers some errors in experimental nuclear thrusters, Oktan has the scientist killed, deeming him a traitor.
• Bait-and-Switch: In one regional event, Oktan invites an ROA officer, Grigor Lagunov, to his office, where he seemingly drops his charismatic personality and darkly tells him that they need to discuss something "very, very serious". As Lagunov's face turns white with terror, Oktan laughs and reveals that he was kidding; he was only invited so that he can be given governorship of Nizhny Novgorod.
• Blatant Lies:
  • On several occasions, Oktan describes himself as a compassionate ruler who fights for the wellbeing of Russia, even though his corrupt and brutal rule speaks otherwise.
  • The history education system he sets up is so full of propaganda lies that even the youngest and poorest educated student can see through it.
  • He denies all accusations that he collaborated with the Germans and engages in corrupt practices. Apparently, this is so true that anyone who contradicts this is harshly punished.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Even though Oktan is despised by the rest of the ROA, he's kept around because of his contacts in Moskowien, which they need to smuggle goods out from.
• Chest of Medals: To self-aggrandize himself for reunifying West Russia, Oktan rewards himself so many medals that they look comically large when pinned to his chest.
• Conspicuous Consumption: Oktan is often shown enjoying fine cognac, tobacco and other luxuries acquired from abroad, offering them to people he wants on his side.
• Cool Shades: Oktan obtains a pair of shades for his 70's portrait. Double as Sinister Shades considering his agenda.
• Corrupt Politician: In addition to being the most fascistic of the KONR's leaders, Oktan is also by far the most corrupt, and uses every opportunity to swindle power and money through charisma.
• Deadly Euphemism:
  • When he meets some of his old contacts in the regional stage, he treats them to some vodka and praises their service before he subtly threatens that they need to make sure they "stay important".
  • After conquering West Siberia, Oktan calls up a Bunyachenko loyalist, Konstantin Kromiadi, to offer a piece of land for him to govern. Oktan shows no love for the man and subtly hints that refusal would mean death.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Handing out land to his cronies like a feudal lord comes back to bite Oktan when they refuse to accept his overarching industrialization policy. For the time being, Oktan can keep them in line through intimidation, but it's implied that this won't work forever.
  • It turns out that becoming a dictator comes with a lot of new responsibilities and worries to manage. Oktan expected that reunifying Russia would allow him to wind down and indulge, only to be constantly interrupted and exhausted with concerns raised by his subordinates.
• Downer Ending: A Russia unified under his rule is a massive neo-feudal kleptocracy, where the lower castes of society are constantly squeezed of their funds to benefit their local provincial rulers, who are all regularly waging conflict against one another.
• Due to the Dead: Whereas Zykov and Bunyachenko at least try to pay lip service to Vlasov's funeral, Oktan hardly mourns him and his first reaction is to break into his office to scavenge his loot, smiling when he thinks about how good "Chariman Oktan" sounds.
• The Elites Jump Ship: Oktan is considering leaving if things get tough for him in Russia.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Downplayed. In order to prepare Samara for war, Oktan allows women to work in the factories in place of the men who are sent to the military. Besides that, Oktan is a Russian supremacist and blatant anti-Semite.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Oktan is unnerved by one of his subordinates, Fyodor Truhin, who's one of the few men to not be intimidated by him and does nothing but stare straight ahead when he's conversed to.
  • A Played for Laughs example when he considers how he should be titled, in which he briefly considers "Vozhd-Emperor" before crossing it off as too ridiculous, even for his glory-seeking attitude.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Oktan is baffled that anyone would actually believe in Zykov's dream of a democratic Russia.
• Evil Pays Better: When he ascends in power, he becomes so impossibly rich that he can pay Bunyachenko's oldest allies to turn on him.
• Evil Versus Evil: In the superregional stage, some orthodox fascists from his regime grumble about Oktan's corrupt and kleptocratic rule. For the time being, they feign loyalty, but plan on eventually overthrowing him so that they can create a more functional fascist regime.
• Fascist, but Inefficient: Spinning his entire government out of corruption, inefficient neo-feudalism, and ignorance to its people's needs, Oktan establishes a weak and fragile dictatorship that offers a solace of peace from the warlord era, but is highly unlikely to survive much longer than that. One event shows that the bone-deep corruption makes it incredibly difficult to ship construction material because the process is constantly interrupted by bureaucrats looking for bribes.
• Fatal Flaw: Greed. His selfish pursuit of the green can make him arrogant to a fault and easy for his rivals to manipulate him, which Zykov exploits.
• Faux Affably Evil: He seems polite enough, being introducing offering one of his smuggled cigarettes to a Vlasovite envoy. However, this belies his chauvinistic and sleazy behavior, eager to sideline or execute those who don't fall for his charms or bribes.
• Feudal Overlord: Oktan gives his officers fiefdoms that they can rule as they please, imposing their own laws, taxes and tariffs. Under his rule Russia devolves into a neo-feudal patchwork.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Nobody in the KONR likes Oktan; everybody considers him to be a corrupt, sleazy, greedy fascist and German boot-licker. They only work with him because he has good connections to the smugglers and pays people well.
• The Generalissimo: Oktan doesn't even bother to put up a veneer of Republicanism like Bunyachenko; he declares himself Grand Marshal and thoroughly maintains the ROA's military dictatorship.
• Gone Horribly Right: His efforts to get Russians to flee to his state from Moskowien works too well, as Oktan now has to deal with thousands of refugees with no home and job. This forces a frustrated Oktan to find an occupation for them.
• Glory Seeker: His campaign to reunify Russia is partially motivated by his desire to engrave his name in history as Russia's liberator.
• Greed: Oktan's goal in life is to turn a profit for himself. One of his focuses is simply titled "Money..."
• Hate Sink: There is not a single thing likable about Oktan. The focus tree even says that Oktan is a walking talking representative of every negative attribute that the Russian people assign to the KONR: corrupt, Fascistic, oppressive, and traitorous.
• The Hedonist: He's purely motivated by self-gratification and manages to garner support for himself by offering large sums of money and land to those who join him, even if it comes at the expense of the people.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Surprisingly, Averted. While information on the historical Oktan is pretty obscure and contradictory^note With some reports saying that he was captured and executed by the Soviets, killed in a shootout with his collaborator allies, or fled to the West to escape certain death, what records that are known show that the real Oktan is just as corrupt, fascistic, and shamelessly pro-German as he is in TNO.^note In real life, Oktan was the editor of a pro-German newspaper and actively produced pro-German and anti-Semitic propaganda, and later led an explicitly anti-Semitic collaborationist unit. He also tried to sell blood harvested from a youth camp he ran to Germans, giving an indication to his greed IRL. His portrayal as a kleptocratic dictator is a natural extension to his actions in real life.
• Hypocrite: After redistributing food away from disloyal populations as punishment, Oktan criticizes the "Bolshevik pigs" who hoard ill-gotten food from their citizens. Pretty rich coming from a scoundrel who robs his own country blind.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: If Bunyachenko is picked as Vlasov's successor, Oktan is presented with evidence of his corrupt smuggling of German goods, which makes him go as white as a ghost. Faced with either resignation or the prospect of ruining his reputation when this information leaks, Oktan picks the former.
• Lack of Empathy: While Zykov and Bunyachenko try to help the populace, Oktan doesn't give a hoot about what his people think of him. When they protest his rule, he unleashes the army to crack down on them.
• Make an Example of Them: When he's informed of a dispute between two feudal lords, Oktan orders them both to be killed and hanged in public as a warning.
• Multiple-Choice Past: It's hard to get a pin on Oktan's past because he's a chronic liar who keeps changing his backstory. As he's drinking with some of his men, he claims that he was a Croatian aristocrat who spent a lot of time in Zagreb at the age of seventeen. One of his men points out that he told a conflicting story last week about how he served in a colonial expedition from Morocco when he was that same age; Oktan then excuses his latest story as a drunken mistake and claims that he was actually sixteen in Zagreb.
• Necessarily Evil: His proposal to buy weapons from Germany gets a bit of support outside of Oktan's support base, with some Zykovites believing that it can relieve taxation on the people and other members of Bunyachenko's faction wishing for better equipment.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: His real name is Mikhail Alexandrovich Ilinich, but everyone calls him by his pseudonym Oktan.
• Opportunistic Bastard: One of the most shamelessly greedy members of the ROA, only seeking to reunify Russia and retake Moscow so that he can enrich himself and his clique of followers.
• Pet the Dog: Under Oktan's rule, a particularly brutal local governor is found gruesomely murdered one day. A message on his body reads "FROM SAMARA: JUSTICE IS DONE".
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Though money is his foremost concern, Oktan is still the most chauvinistic of Vlasov's successors, enacting policies to restrict minority rights and promoting anti-Semitic lies that Russia must be protected from Judeo-Bolshevik tyranny.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • If allowed to crush an uprising in Samara, Oktan will send some of the less troublesome political prisoners to work camps instead of being executed so that they can benefit the state.
  • When picked as Vlasov' successor, Oktan may choose to keep Zykov and Bunyachenko around for the time being rather than sideline them because their skills will be useful for his own ends.
• Protection Racket: Taxation under his rule is essentially a glorified version of racketeering, especially if you're a minority. According to one event, multiple tax collectors visit a single Jewish family, whose quick and subsequent appearances cause confusion and a drain on their money. While the father tries to get answers and his funds in order, the latest collector emphasizes that he should pay up quickly before his family gets in trouble and might need to be relocated. "For their safety, of course."
• Punctuality Is for Peasants: Averted, surprisingly enough for such a self-serving individual. If it means countering his enemies and expanding his influence, Oktan will gladly show up to anything first or on time - even if he has to pay his driver fifty thousand rubles to run over a pro-Zykov protestor who's blocking his car.
• The Quisling: Oktan is incredibly willing to work with Germany to both destroy Bolshevism and profit himself.
• Red Baron: If Oktan manages to unify Russia, he gets called the "Jailor King of All Russias" in the reunification news event.
• Shadow Dictator: Oktan likens himself to a shadowy puppet master who governs Russia through blackmail and sends his minions to do his dirty work.
• Skewed Priorities: While personally inspecting his nuclear program, Oktan is clearly more interested in how much the technology would be worth rather than the implications of how it can be used.
• Straw Hypocrite: While making plans to sell off Russia's nuclear program and flee to Switzerland, Grand Marshal Oktan justifies his comically corrupt rule by proclaiming that the people are coming together under his "benevolent gaze" to "restore Russia's lost glory, to purge it of the unclean, and to deliver terrible vengeance upon her enemies". "And you'd better believe it."
• Swiss Bank Account: Oktan has one—just in case anything happens, of course—as well as a Swiss financial adviser and a vacation home in Switzerland.
• This Is Gonna Suck: If Oktan is named Vlasov's successor, the ROA goes into uproar, knowing that nothing good can come out of this nomination.
• Token Evil Teammate: Whereas most of Samara's leaders are Anti-Villains of various types and various shades, Oktan is a greedy Hate Sink with no redeeming qualities.
• Too Desperate to Be Picky: If Samara picks Oktan's suggestion to buy German weapons, the shipments are revealed to have obsolete Word War Two-era weapons, but Oktan doesn't really care since "weapons are weapons".
• Venturous Smuggler: Oktan worked his way up as a smuggler and keeps up his criminal contacts even as ruler of western Russia.
• Villainous Breakdown: The stress of ruling a state begins to catch up to Oktan by the superregional stage, who can no longer keep up the affable exterior he once could and hisses at his men to stop bickering amongst themselves.
• We ARE Struggling Together:
  • Despite nominally being the head of KONR when he reunifies West Russia, his authority is contested by civilian administrators, military cliques, and his own inner circle. As Oktan's neo-feudal governorship weakens his direct control over Russia, giving concessions and bribes is key to maintaining their loyalty, lest he be given crippling debuffs.
  • By the time of the superregional stage, Oktan's cabinet becomes plagued with petty disputes over who controls what. It gets so bad that Oktan's starting to struggle with keeping them in-line.

Aryan Brotherhood (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

^{Flag of Hyperborea}

Official Name: Aryan Brotherhood, Purified Aryan Brotherhood (regional unification), Russkiy Reykh (superregional unification), Hyperborea (Velimir)

Ruling Party: Arishe Brudershaft^note Aryan Brotherhood

Ideology: National Socialism

A brutal National Socialist state based in Perm (now named Permhaym) led by Gutrum Vagner and the Aryan Brotherhood. The Aryan Brotherhood was founded upon a warped version of Nazi Germany's Aryan supremacist ideology, seeing Aryanism as a higher state of mind rather than merely a physical race. The Aryan Brotherhood imitates the superior Aryan culture in the name of Aryan revival, and aims to purify Russia of its subhuman Slavic mindset and elevate the nation to a higher state of being through Aryanization.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: The Aryan Brotherhood loves Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and wants to form an official partnership with Germany as they continue unifying Russia. Germany reacts to their diplomacy with nothing but bewilderment and disgust.
• Allohistorical Allusion: The name and the violent initiation practices of the Aryan Brotherhood evokes the OTL American prison gang of the same name (which probably will not be formed in this timeline, since it arose as a response to desegregation which in TNOTL America may happen later or not at all).
• Army of Thieves and Whores: The disorganized military of the Brotherhood is a band of thieves and marauders who wipe out whole villages and spread terror with their raids. It works well when the Brotherhood is a tiny statelet, until the Aryan Code formalizes more discipline into their ranks.
• Ax-Crazy: Almost all "Aryans" that are initiated into the Aryan Brotherhood are bloodthirsty brutes who casually brutalize people they consider subhumans at their whims.
• The Bad Guy Wins: They are the second-worst warlord unifier (after Taboritsky) for Russia and are so insane and oppressive that nobody minds having them crushed without a trace. If either path actually succeeds, they will do so in spite of their self-harming policies and rather underequipped start.
• Bait the Dog:
  • Early on, an Aryan Brotherhood envoy is sent to an isolated Russian village, where he claims to come with a message of hope. After inspecting one "worthy" Aryan among them, the envoy has him forcibly inducted into their ranks, while liquidating the rest.
  • When a unit from Gayny is taken prisoner by the Brotherhood, their escort promises them hot food and water, which perks up many of them, since they've gone days without either. Unfortunately, the commander's proposition is that they can only enjoy the privilege if they can kill five of their comrades, which at least one soldier accepts with some hesitation.
  • An event depicts a former follower of Bukharina as a slave who one day falls out of exhaustion. She is helped up by a member of the Brotherhood and told to rest for the moment. When another member sees this, he can barely believe that one of their most dedicated followers of the cause would help a slave. Then it turns out that said leader intends to have her executed in front of the other slaves to show that they do not tolerate weakness.
  • In Hyperborea, the soldiers are sent to remote parts of Russia, telling the locals that they are there to set up a nature preserve and seemingly leave them alone in peace. As one unfortunate Tatar family finds out, the process involves ethnically cleansing the region.
• Beard of Evil: Interestingly, almost all of the Aryan Brotherhood generals and ministers' portraits are photoshopped with grimy beards and/or moustaches, making them look far uglier than how they did in real life.
• Beware the Silly Ones: As odd as their ideologies make them, there is a reason why the Aryan Brotherhood starts off as the worst warlord state in 1962 Russia, even when compared to the genocidal ultranationalist Black League of Omsk and the unhinged fascist regime in Amur; exactly one other Russian path (Taboritsky's) can be considered worse.
  • Under Vagner, the Aryan Brotherhood is a band of Russians who LARP as Germans to a comical degree, running around in a post-apocalyptic Russia incoherently rambling on how the Russian people need to "Aryanise" to survive. They are also fanatical Nazis, led by murderers and rapists, and have been described as a farce that turns out to be a horror movie.
  • Should Yemelyanov take power as Velimir, the group transforms into a bunch of neopagans that constantly proclaim themselves to be the "true Aryans" that have descended from Ancient Astronauts. In trying to prove to the world that their homeland of Palestine will one day be reclaimed by them, they will have to deal with very poor or outright torturous living conditions brought on by detrimental policies made from their fringe and esoteric views. At the same time, they still have a chance to place all of Russia under their rule.
  • Both paths see the group establish the basis for nuclear research should they expand enough, allowing them to become capable of nuclear armament in the future.
• Boomerang Bigot: The Aryan Brotherhood is mainly made up of Russian Slavs, yet they believe in Hitler's racial ideologies of Aryan supremacy, in which Slavs are several levels below Aryans.
• Church Militant: Under Velimir, priests are enlisted into the military so that they can indoctrinate the soldiers with ancient tales of Aryan supremacism and have them committed to their religious cause.
• Condescending Compassion: Some ideologues of the Brotherhood push for an inclusive policy towards accepting some non-Aryan Russians, considering them "worthy subhumans".
• Conlang: The official language of the Aryan Brotherhood is "Deytsch", a fictional blend of Russian and German as part of Vagner's attempts to eliminate the native culture and adopt the ways of the Nazis.
• Crushing the Populace: The Aryan Brotherhood brutally represses every inch of territory they conquer to reshape the lands in their twisted ideals.
• Cult: The Aryan Brotherhood operates like a cult, worshipping the Ubermensch as the new gods of Russia and calling each other "brother". Hyperborea abandons this notion in favor of neo-Paganism.
• Culture Police: The Aryan Brotherhood instates extensive programs of cultural assimilation and eradication to spread Aryan culture, traditions and language, erase non-Aryan cultural elements, and ban the Russian language. Should Hyperborea rise, they will continue their operations, but in favor of Slavic and pagan elements, while erasing everything else.
• Dangerous Deserter: Vagner and his generals were Red Army recruits that abandoned the West Russian Revolutionary Front after witnessing the Nazis crush their forces. Once the war was over, they emerged from the forests and took over the streets of Perm.
• Dark Horse Victory: The odds of either of the Aryan Brotherhood paths unifying Russia are slim at best, not the least of which because their buffs are significantly worse than any other unifier in west Russia.
• Dark Is Evil: The soldiers of the Aryan Brotherhood are described as wearing black uniforms to highlight their wicked nature.
• Deconstruction: Their mass enslavement practices come under scrutiny in the regional stage, where oppressing 90% of their population creates administrative difficulties and creates a massive debate over what should be done with them.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Everyone is mandated to speak Deytsch. Breaking this law once will be punishable with a public flogging and violating it again will lead to execution.
• Downer Ending: Both Aryan Brotherhood paths lead to terrible results with the regime being described as worse than the Black League in Omsk. Vagner's Brotherhood unifies Russia as a "Reykh" in which the vast majority of the population are terrorized slaves, and while Velimir is less maniacally repressive against Russians themselves, his Hyperborea is a totalitarian theocracy that will likely end the world to achieve their insane ambition of global conquest. The developers consider the Aryan Brotherhood to be the worst Russian warlord state and second worst unifier, after Sergey Taboritsky.
• Dramatic Irony: In a recruitment session, the Brotherhood examines who to initiate based on their Aryaness. They execute one recruit for having a nose "clearly of a Semitic phenotype", but praise the guy next to him as a "true Aryan specimen". Unbeknownst to them, the man they just commended was half-Kazakh, highlighting how much nonsense their judgements are.
• The Dreaded: The local villages fear the Brotherhood, calling them "the Black Scourge" for their merciless raids that massacre entire populations without mercy.
• Dystopia Justifies the Means: Though not quite matching the sheer total oppression of the Burgundian System, the Aryan Brotherhood will create an insane dystopia in the name of their insane ideology should they conquer all of Russia.
• Dystopia Is Hard: Re-unifying Russia as either of the Aryan Brotherhood paths is quite challenging, not the least of which because they have some of the worst national spirits of any unifier (likely as a result of their simultaneously brutal and ill-conceived policy-making).
• Earn Your Bad Ending: The Aryan Brotherhood is one of the hardest Russian warlords to play, starting with no armor or air tech, often disastrously short of manpower depending on your path, and requiring a very long time to core states. Should they actually reunify Russia however, they create an absolutely horrific Dystopia, and the Hyperborea path creates an insane theocracy bent on conquering the world in addition to being a Dystopia, putting the world down the path of nuclear conflict between Hyperborea and Germany, similar to Omsk.
• Easy Logistics: Invoked, where the Aryan Brotherhood doesn't pay any heed to "unnecessary inconveniences" like logistics because they believe they just need to win battles and live off the land. It's an exceptionally poor strategy that highlights their ineptitude. In Vagner's route, the issue may finally be rectified in the regional stage, as railways and infrastructure are repaired to supply the armed forces.
• Evil Feels Good: Some sergeants of the Brotherhood disturbingly enjoy their job of killing and abusing the "untermensch".
• Eviler than Thou: After reaching the regional stage, a power struggle occurs between Vagner and Shultz. Eventually, there will be a physical confrontation where one will kill the other to secure leadership over the Brotherhood.
• Evil Versus Evil: Vagner and Shultz will eventually conflict over their differing definitions of Aryanism and it's hard to say who's worse. If Vagner triumphs, his genocidal, unstable regime survives to continue oppressing the large majority of his population under a delusional ideology. If Shultz takes over, he will eventually steer his country towards a war with Nazi Germany and even Burgundy because he believes that they are Jewish puppets, while only making marginal improvements to the nation's stability.
• Fascist, but Inefficient: Both paths have the worst spirits and debuffs out of all the unifiers due to their incoherent and brutal ideologies influencing much of their policies. Stability is often difficult to maintain.
• Foreign Culture Fetish:
  • The Aryan Brotherhood is fascinated with Nazi German and attempts to imitate it in every aspect, up to espousing Nazi ideals themselves in spite of the fact they, as Russians, would be considered untermensch under the Nazi racial hierarchy. To justify this, they expand the definition of "Aryan" to refer to anyone with an "Aryan state of mind", though they have a very unforgiving definition of this.
  • Their unique economic system, Deytsch Economics, has been described as a "shallow attempt" at imitating the Nazis, supporting the use of slave labor by giant megacorporations named after famous German companies. The only thing this system is good at is imitating the same financial crises faced by the Reich.
• Foreign Ruling Class: The goal of the Brotherhood is to artificially create a racial ruling caste out of its Aryan Russian subjects, purified of all traces of Slavic degeneracy, and enforce its supremacy over the servile masses of Russians.
• Fourth Reich: A particularly odd case due to the Third Reich still being around in this timeline. The Aryan Brotherhood is a band of Russian Nazi LARPers who mimic Adolf Hitler's ideals and German culture (specifically that of the Nazi Party and the SS), and seek to unite Russia under their Reykh.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The Aryan Brotherhood starts out as a pathetic joke of a country, barely maintaining their control over Permhaym and nowhere near a match for the continent-spanning Einheitspakt. However, they're still a potential contender for Russian unification and can transition into a global threat under Velimir.
• Gratuitous German: Invoked as part of the Aryan Brotherhood's plan to turn themselves into Aryans:
  • They call themselves Arische Bruderschaft in German (or as it is romanised in the game, Arishe Brudershaft) instead of Ariyskoe bratstvo in their native Russian.
  • Their members give themselves German-sounding names (which might or might not be authentic).
  • Their leader calls himself 'Fyurer' (like how a native Russian speaker would pronounce the German word Führer).
  • They added 'haym' to the name of their capital city to emulate -heim, a common suffix in the name of German towns.
  • Russia under the Aryan Brotherhood is called Russkiy Reykh, a bizarre amalgamation of Russian and German.
• Grim Up North: Invoked. This is especially notable in Velimir's path with him calling his state "Hyperborea" and frequently referring to it as "the North", but Vagner also uses references to northern cultures heavily, with most of his war plans being named after Norse mythological beings. Ironically, out of all West Russian unifiers, the Aryan Brotherhood is located farthest to the south.
• Hate Sink: The Aryan Brotherhood is the most despicable faction in Russia, bar none. Everything about them is made to be as despicable and horrific as possible. They are a bunch of crazy Russian Nazi cultists who consider themselves the master race under completely arbitrary and incoherent beliefs, they dehumanize and oppress 99% of Russia's population and are the most active slave user in all of Russia, their generals are all criminals and their leaders are neo-Nazis, and they create some of the worst incarnations of Russia when unifying. Even other insane regimes like the Russian National Reclamation Government, Zhdanov's United Soviet Federation, the Russian National State, Lazar Kaganovich's Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Oktan's Russian State, the Russian National Soviet Republic, Boris Shepunov's Russian Empire and the Holy Russian Empire could be considered, in their own twisted way, as acting in what their leaders see as what is in the best interests of Russia and its people, whereas the Aryan Brotherhood is thoroughly irredeemable and definitely does not believe in their twisted way to be working for Russia's best interests.
• Hated by All: The Aryan Brotherhood is perhaps the most despised faction in Russia at game start, surpassing the already universally-disliked KONR and matched only by Dirlewanger and his brigade; if not for their abominable societal practices, then at least for their flagrant rejection of the notion that the Russian nation should exist. Virtually every warlord reacts with disgust and bewilderment at their insane ideology and will happily put them down because they stand in their way and for moral reasons. Their defeat quote is even one of the only ones that celebrates the relevant nation's downfall.
• Heel–Face Turn: One member of the Aryan Brotherhood survives the collapse of human civilization if nuclear war is triggered, deeply remorseful of the atrocities he committed out of deranged zealotry. When he encounters a young Russian boy from the rubble, it's implied he'll take care of him out of atonement for his past.
• Historical Villain Upgrade:
  • In real life, the Aryan Brotherhood's generals and ministers (excluding Vagner and Shultz) were former Heroes of the Soviet Union who were stripped of the title for murder (of superior officers or their wives/children) and rape. In this timeline, on top of these crimes, they've also accepted Vagner's neo-Nazi beliefs too.
  • There is one major exception to the above rule, however, which practically veers into Ron the Death Eater territory. AB general and Economy Minister "Lukas Oto" is actually Lev Vasilievich Obelov, who was by all accounts a completely normal Soviet pilot who had no major criminal records and was never deprived of his Hero of the Soviet Union award.
• Home Guard: In the regional stage, a domestic security force of volunteers is assembled to enforce the Aryan code and instill order in the country.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: Some members of Vagner's cabinet will join Velimir's coup against their boss, wanting to keep their old prestige and position rather than sacrifice it for a lost cause.
• I Just Want to Be You: There are absolutely obssessed with the Nazi regime and have taken painstaking efforts into imitating them, from sporting badly-fitting uniforms they found from the previous war to speaking a bizarre dialect of German. When they meet a German soldier held captive in Samara, said soldier is perplexed at their behavior and worship.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: If someone wants to join the elevated "Russian Aryan" caste, they'll need to kill or capture at least five people as proof of their "Aryaness".
• Initiation Ceremony: The Aryan Brotherhood doesn't do blood tests to determine who's Aryan; instead, they pick out Aryan-looking people from their populace (an almost completely arbitrary process), send them through a period of intensive Aryanization, and initiate them into the Brotherhood as true Aryans.
• In Spite of a Nail: Though it happened in very different circumstances, Alexei Dobrovolsky and Valery Yemelyanov still ended up becoming leaders of a Russian Nazi movement, although much earlier than in OTL and with a different ideology.
• Kangaroo Court: If Vagner defeats Shultz in their power struggle, the latter will be accused of treason and promoting anti-Aryan propaganda by a tribunal, where they inevitably sentence him to be shot.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Under Velimir's orders, the churches in Russia are to be burned down as a sacrifice to the pagan gods, in which some Christians go along with the process, deciding to conceal and worship their faith in secret than die a pointless death.
• Make an Example of Them: They are fond of using this tactic on their slaves.
  • When training the slaves to use a rifle, they will threaten to shoot any one of them randomly if other slaves fail to learn. A commander being killed by one of the slaves results in not only the attacker's death, but also the executions of ten others in their unit.
  • All enslaved workers are expected to continue working, no matter what happens. When one worker drops to his knees upon hearing an incoming German bomber, the inspector orders him to be taken outside and made "an example out of" for the others.
• Master Race: Being unironic Nazi LARPers, the Aryan Brotherhood's members view themselves as the master race and all non-Aryans as subhuman.
• Meaningful Rename: The Aryan Brotherhood's members abandon their Russian birth names and give themselves German names when they subscribe to Hitler's Aryan supremacist ideology and mimic German culture.
• Meet the New Boss: When the Aryan Brotherhood conquers Bashkiria, the local citizens lament the fact that they will once more be oppressed, regardless of whether their new masters call themselves Russian or Aryan.
• Mood Whiplash: After the German bombings stop, a Russian couple shares a cliché romantic night of sitting underneath a starry night. Unfortunately, just when they are about to kiss, the Brotherhood kidnaps them, conscripting the man into their ranks and enslaving his wife.
• Morton's Fork:
  • The Russians enslaved into being foot soldiers of the Brotherhood are ill-equipped with outdated munitions. By that point, their only foreseeable options are to either inevitably march to an unwinnable battle or disobey orders and face punishment from his overseers. No matter what, they're going to wind up dead.
  • If Shultz's reforms are chosen, the slaves are given the option to work hard enough to earn their freedom, except that they'll continue to be moderated by Aryan supervisors and forced into menial labor, as if nothing's changed. Meanwhile, abstaining would mean continuing to remain enslaved and thus facing the exact same consequences.
• Mundane Luxury: The living standards under the Brotherhood are so horrible that a stale piece of bread is considered a luxury by the inhabitants.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Aryan Brotherhood is this from the perspective of Russians owing not just to their oppressive policies but also because their name brings bad memories to many Russians who had seen Germany pillage and burn their country in the name of Aryan supremacy. It doesn't help that "Aryan Brotherhood" is often used by Neo-Nazi organizations in our world.
• No OSHA Compliance: The Brotherhood puts no effort to ensuring safe work environments for their slaves. When an old munitions cache is accidentally set off in a factory, the inspector doesn't care that six slaves just died in the accident and thinks that he has "better things to do".
• No True Scotsman: What their teaching of a Master Race runs on. A true "Aryan" picked at random must meet subjective criteria through their behavior and actions, and if they are thought to follow the belief of Might Makes Right enough, they are invited and initiated. Hyperborea does the same, with "degenerate" Slavs being oppressed for not staying true to the "Aryan" ideal that Velimir upholds.
• Obviously Evil: Even a cursory glance at the Aryan Brotherhood should tell you that they are fucked up, with their unshaved faces and decrepit uniforms, their nonsensical "Deytsch" names, the swastika on their flag, and the fact that they are called Aryan Brotherhood, an extremely common name adopted by Neo-Nazi organizations.
• Operation: [Blank]: The Brotherhood's campaigns to conquer other West Russian warlords are called 'Operation: X', with "X" being a Nordic mythological entity like Skinfaxi or Thrym.
• Patriotic Fervor: Those who have been judged as Aryans by the Brotherhood are encouraged to enjoy their new sense of racial pride and reject their Slavic identities.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Deconstructed in a minor event chain. When a slave accidentally injures her left foot, a normally devoted Brotherhood member helps her up and brings her to a tree's shade so she can rest for the day. Unfortunately, there's a reason why these kinds of moments are rare in the Brotherhood; they are actively discouraged by the system. When the guard's superior witnesses this, he's outraged and plans to have the slave executed in front of the others for her laziness, nullifying the show of kindness immediately.
  • Lenin's mummified body is held in a city in one of the other former-Russian states, and capturing the location offers a decision to choose what to do with it. Surprisingly, the Aryan Brotherhood is allowed to choose the option of not destroying it, instead of being forced to desecrate Lenin's mummy.
• Please Select New City Name: Perm was renamed to "Permhaym" under the rule of the Aryan Brotherhood. It gets its old name back if another warlord defeats the Aryan Brotherhood and finishes coring the territory.
• Pragmatic Villainy: With regards to slave working conditions, the Aryan Brotherhood has the pragmatic option to offer small concessions like foods to the slaves so they can work harder. The alternative is to force them into total slavery at the barrel of a gun.
• Proud Warrior Race:
  • The Aryan Brotherhood believes that true Aryans are fearless warriors whose only thoughts are of courage and conquest. This often in practice becomes a Might Makes Right, Virtue Is Weakness mentality, and initiates are often ordered to kill other initiates to demonstrate their Aryan ruthlessness.
  • Velimir's Hyperborea manages to double down on Vagner's militarism, instilling militaristic fanaticism into his entire Slavo-Aryan society and directing the country towards his grand plans of conquest to truly realize the Aryan glory.
• Putting on the Reich: They mimic the aesthetics of the Reich and adopt Nazi imagery as part of their plan to Aryanize themselves. The Aryan Brotherhood does this quite literally, with many of their ill-fitting uniforms being found from the wreckage of previous battles Germany launched against the Soviet Union.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Members of the Aryan Brotherhood, seeing themselves as the master race, casually sack, pillage, and exterminate Russian villages that they encounter in their conquests. In fact, Vagner actively mandates for 50% of the men and 25% of the women and children to be exterminated for every village they occupy.
• Secret Police: In emulation of the Nazi regime, the Aryan Brotherhood forms their own version of the Gestapo (which they spell as Gehaymeshtatspolitsey). Hyperborea has their own, who double as the Culture Police.
• Shown Their Work: The four-colored sauwastika on the flag of Hyperborea was a symbol representing the Slavo-Aryan race used by the Ynglists, an extremist Russian neopagan group whose theology involved Slavo-Aryanism and ancient Aryans in Hyperborea^note In contrast to Yemelyanov's theology, which didn't involve Hyperborea. The colors represent the four Slavo-Aryan lineages in the Ynglists beliefs: the gray-eyed (white) Da'Aryans, the green-eyed Kh'Aryans, the hazel-eyed (red) Rassenians, and the blue-eyed Svyatorussians.^note The particular orientation of the sauwastika appears to be based on a painting of Hyperborea by Russian artist Vsevolod Borisovich Ivanov, who wasn't exactly a Ynglist but used the icons of Slavic neopagan groups in his neopagan paintings.
• Slave Brand: The Aryan Brotherhood marks their slaves with red-iron hot brands whose ends are shaped like different swastikas. Depending on the symbol used, they can mark who will stay a slave and who can become a potential Brotherhood member in the future. Specifically, a swastika brand marks a bad slave who should be killed and a X-cross brand marks a good slave to keep.
• Slave Mooks: The Aryan Brotherhood can choose to primarily use subhuman slaves as their infantry, with the Aryans serving as their ruthless overseers and officers, as an alternative to having a purely Aryan military.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Aryan Brotherhood is the most active user of slaves in Western Russia (if not all of Russia), believing that subhumans deserve only to be enslaved by Aryans. They're assigned as either laborers or soldiers, neither of which are desirable positions.
• Smoky Gentlemen's Club: The Association for the Preservation of Aryan Culture is a niche social club of influential ideologues to meet together and espouse their latest anti-Semitic beliefs. More importantly, it's how Shultz's own esoteric views are disseminated across the Brotherhood.
• The Social Darwinist: The organization believes that the strong "Aryanized" members deserve to crush all those that they arbitrarily deem "inferior," and initiation ceremonies eventually adopt the idea to have their potential members kill one another so that the surviving initiates are seen as worthy.
• Sociopathic Soldier: As a result of both paths' standards for a Proud Warrior Race. The AB itself began as a group of Red Army conscripts that came to believe in Aryan supremacy after abandoning the battle on the western front. All followers value Might Makes Right in every aspect of their lives, especially the battlefield.
• Spell My Name With An S: The German words and names used by the Aryan Brotherhood are not spelt according to German orthography, but are instead phonetically transcribed from the German alphabet to Russian Cyrillic and then back to English, for example Arishe Brudershaft (instead of Arische Bruderschaft), Deytsch (Deutsch), Fyurer (Führer), Permhaym (Permheim), Reykh (Reich), Gitler (Hitler), Vagner (Wagner), Shvarzenbakh (Schwarzenbach), Shmit (Schmidt), Shnayder (Schneider), and so on.
• State Sec: Created by Vagner, the Nachtryters are a secret internal security force, tasked with travelling across Russia, always striking where they are least expected, burning any place that is suspected to house partisans to the ground, killing anyone they can find.
• Suicide by Cop: Unable to bear the hellish circumstances of their new life, some slaves lose all hope and stop doing their jobs so the guards can just kill them.
• Tank Goodness: During their unification of West Russia, the Brotherhood adopts Blitzkrieg tactics by mobilizing their own "Pantser" units.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: After they reunify all of West Russia, the Brotherhood's leadership becomes plagued with internal conflicts about how to govern their new territories, like racial policy and the overabundance of slaves. The arguing gets so bad that screaming matches and fights begin breaking out. All of these disputes must be codified by the Aryan Code and resolved in the power struggle between Vagner and Shultz.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The world has this reaction to them reunifying Russia. The "Russkiy Reykh" ends with the international committee being fearful of what's to come while Germany holds on responding, though the world theorizes that they are in a state of shock. Hyperborea draws even more alarm from the world, as it declares intentions to conquer other parts of the globe and wage war to meet its ends.
• Those Wacky Nazis: The Aryan Brotherhood is a bunch of Russians following a bizarre version of Hitler's Aryan supremacist ideology.
• Un-person: When the Aryan Brotherhood is defeated by another warlord, all traces that it left behind will be meticulously erased, in order to ensure that it is forgotten and will never reappear. No one complains.
• White Man's Burden: After unifying West Russia, they embark on a "civilizing mission" to tame their controlled territories, believing that only they are up to the task.
• The Window or the Stairs: From the start, Shultz seems like the lesser of two evils in his conflict with Vagner, being the one who advocates some level of reforms in their slave practices. However, if he does come into power, he's revealed to be even crazier than his predecessor.
• Word Salad Philosophy: The Aryan Brotherhood's whole schtick about "higher Aryan state of mind" is so incoherent and so supremacist, that in practice, it is simply used to justify their arbitrary oppression of other Russians.
• Wretched Hive: Perhaym, the Brotherhood's capital, is a rotting, run-down city of broken roads and a growing poverty class. The housing apartments provided to the "subhumans" are cramped and dirty, while functional businesses are a rarity in the city.

Gutrum Vagner

Role: Military Commander, Head of State

Party: Arishe Brudershaft^note Aryan Brotherhood

Ideology: National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}The enfant terrible of Western Russia, an infamy he earned among his rival neighbors, Alexey Alexandrovich Dobrovolsky had an unremarkable background. The hardships suffered by his family in a collapsing world of Soviet Russia after the war left him with little opportunities for self-realization, but like many of his peers, he was taught in his childhood about the superiority of socialist nations, leaders, and armies. Yet, being conscripted by the West Russian Revolutionary forces during their strike at Moskowien, he saw these superior soldiers being slaughtered and pushed back by a far stronger foe. Witnessing the havoc and destruction brought by both sides, he could not help himself but to be dazzled by the might of the Aryan sword. Deserting along with the fellow-minded Red Army recruits to the woods of Perm, he devoted himself to the search for truth, the reason why the German legions easily trampled the Soviet state and submitted the Slavic tribe to their will. He found his answer in Russian history. Peter the Great had once traveled around Europe, and then forced the people of Russia to abandon their backwards ways and embrace a more civilized culture. This was the true meaning of the Aryan spirit - not merely a physical race, but a higher state of mind! Following in (what he believed to be) the footsteps of Peter the Great himself and educating himself in German and Aryan ways from any scrap of literature he could find, the self-proclaimed Fyurer of the Aryan Brotherhood, now having adopted the Aryan name of Gutrum Vagner, attracted a loyal following to his mission, which he saw in the reclamation of Russia from the untermenshen and degenerates for the true masters of Europe. After the West Russian War, he and his men swarmed the anarchic city of Perm and declared it the site of Aryan revival, where they indulged in the imitation of the ways of the superior race and brought terror and humiliation upon the Slavic subhumans. Holding up one of the most merciless and terrifying forces of Russia with a firm hand, Vagner gazes into the farthest reaches of Russia, seeking to return it to the cradle of the Aryan civilization.

Gutrum Vagner, born Alexey Alexandrovich Dobrovolsky, is the young and terrible Fyurer of the Aryan Brotherhood. A Red Army conscript during the West Russian War, Dobrovolsky witnessed the supposedly superior socialist forces being decimated by the German war machine. Never truly faithful in socialism, Dobrovolsky became an admirer of the German might, and deserted to search for the truth behind their strength.

Inspired by Peter the Great, Dobrovolsky realized that Aryanism is a higher state of mind, and that Russia can be elevated if it abandons its degenerate Slavic ways and embrace Aryanism. With a mission in mind, Dobrovolsky founded the Aryan Brotherhood with his few loyal followers, seized the anarchic city of Perm, and began his path to Russia's Aryan revival.

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• Allohistorical Allusion: In this timeline, Dobrovolsky turned to Nazism as he did in real life, albeit under very different circumstances.
  • While a Slavic neopagan in real life, OTL Dobrovolsky allegedly opposed the sect of Yngliism, seeing its insane religious doctrines as embarrassing for Slavic neopaganism. In TNO, his main internal opposition is Velimir's Hyperboreans, who share much in common (from their flag to their Ancient Astronauts conspiracy theories) with the Ynglings.
• Bad Boss: He doesn't take failure kindly and threatens to kill his foreign minister because his diplomatic attempts with the Germans keep failing.
• Beard of Evil: As can be seen in Vagner's portrait, he seemingly never shaves his beard.
• Bond One-Liner: A more villainous version. After successfully thwarting Shultz's coup and having him executed, Vagner remarks, "Good try, buddy, but you shouldn't fuck with the Fyurer."
• Boomerang Bigot: He considers 99% of his own country's population as impure Russians who deserve to be killed or enslaved, even though he's Russian himself. His deluded mind reasons that being Aryan is a state of mind, ergo his double standards are completely justified.
• The Caligula: Vagner is an unhinged, bloodthirsty tyrant who demands his initiates to kill hundreds of innocents so that they can purify Russia.
• Les Collaborateurs: He's unabashedly pro-German and wants to join their sphere of influence as "racial cousins" fighting against the Jews and other untermensh.
• Days of Future Past: He looks to the Roman Empire's practices as inspiration for his current management tactics, such as appointing superintended slaves to oversee their lower compatriots, similarly to the Vilici.
• Deadly Euphemism: Vagner recruits West Russian scientists to invent new equipment for the military to use, giving them some "polite persuasion" to do so in a timely manner.
• Divide and Conquer: Said verbatim in one his focuses, in which he keeps his regime alive by turning the Untermensh ethnicities against each other. By starting false raids and blaming it one one ethnicity, Vagner can enflame ethnic violence among the lower castes so that the Aryans can reign supreme.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: In a twisted way, despite being a bona-fide Nazi. Due to Vagner earnestly believing in Nazi racial theories and thus treating ''all'' of Russia's ethnic groups with contempt, and because of having no actual criteria for who is "Aryan" and who isn't, he finds "Aryans" among the "Untermenschen" seemingly at random, on occasion recruiting people of Tatar and even Kazakh ancestry into the Brotherhood.
• Faux Affably Evil: He can occasionally put on a veneer of calmness, at one point praising a senior Brotherhood member for training his men well. Unfortunately, this barely disguises how ill-tempered and mad he really is.
• Forced to Watch: As part of his crackdowns on slave disobedience, Vagner declares that anyone caught conspiring against their masters will be mauled by dogs in front of their families.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Vagner used to be a young Red Army conscript on the frontlines of the West Russian War. Now he's the leader of a major National Socialist political faction in Western Russia.
• Glory Hound: Downplayed because his ideology is the prime motivation, but glory is a bonus he'll happily take. When he makes a public speech about continuing Hitler's crusade against Judeo-Bolshevism across the world, Vagner basks in the adulation he receives from the crowd.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: Dobrovolsky has gone from a fringe neo-Nazi and neo-pagan writer in real life to a brutal warlord capable of leading a Nazi cult to unify Russia in this timeline.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: The conditions of the alternate history has made Dobrovolsky far more radical and militant compared to the crazy old man Dobrovolsky became in real life. For one, Dobrovolsky's crazy beliefs in TNO are genuinely different from his crazy beliefs in real life, as he embraced Aryan cultural supremacism instead of Slavic neopaganism, resulting in him becoming far more antagonistic towards other Russians. Secondly, Dobrovolsky has also received ample Historical Badass Upgrade amidst Russia's anarchy in TNO, allowing him to become an outright warlord rather than just a writer.
• Hollywood Atheist: Contrary to Shultz's worship of pagan gods, Vagner denounces them as dead, and mandates the destruction of all religious symbols and locations. To Vagner, the only people left to serve are the Nazis.
• Hope Crusher: He believes that the slaves can only be made docile by abusing them with all sorts of punishments, destroying any sense of hope in their spirits.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He believes that Germany will accept an alliance with his "Reyk" after they've "Aryanized" themselves enough.
• Hypocrite: During his debate with Shultz, Vagner makes an implication that he is a coward. When his opponent uses the same insult against him, Vagner goes livid.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: When he saw his fellow soldiers lose the battle against the Nazis, he and other likeminded recruits abandoned their posts and concluded that they and all of Russia must adopt the culture and teachings of Nazi Germany to survive. Vagner has always aimed for an alliance with Germany, and he won't stop pursuing it even after being ignored at the regional stage.
• I Have Your Wife: To discourage rebellion among the people, Vagner has one member of their families held hostage in a labor camp, threatening to execute them if any resistance activity were to occur.
• Improperly Paranoid: He views every slave clamoring for freedom as a saboteur who would parasitize off of the Reykh, encouraging his stronger enforcement of the Brotherhood's racial hierarchy.
• Insane Troll Logic:
  • His whole ideology of Russia needing to adopt German National Socialism is based on the fact that Peter the Great visited Europe and modeled his government after the ones he studied, in which it's supposedly Vagner's duty to do the same.
  • Vagner's bastardized version of Hitler's Aryan supremacist ideology (already a pseudoscientific ideology detached from reality) is even more insane and incoherent. Despite what his bio may suggest, he does not have a coherent definition of "Aryan"; his Aryan selection process is almost completely arbitrary, with biological-psychological ramblings used to justify their selections after the fact. One senior member of the Brotherhood openly tells another to "Just pick whatever you like" when deciding who is an Aryan because there's no other way to choose. His entire rule in practise basically has him arbitrarily separating a random group of Russians from the rest, force them to adopt bootleg German culture, and tell them to oppress other Russians.
  • Every time Germany rejects their attempts of formalizing a relationship, Vagner comes up with an illogical reason for why Germany has rebuffed them (i.e. Zionist spies intercepting their messages).
• Jerkass: Vagner doesn't try to hide the fact that he's a terrible boss to work for. When an envoy delivers a map of Western Russia to him, Vagner curtly tells him to "piss off", without a hint of gratitude.
• Meaningful Rename: Alexey Dobrovolsky adopted the German-sounding name Gutrum Vagner after fully embracing German culture and forming the Aryan Brotherhood.
• Might Makes Right: Inspired by the Nazi's social Darwinist ideology, Vagner justifies his slave practices as a reasonable measure to keep weak Russians obedient to their superiors.
• No True Scotsman: He would seem to have a set standard that strong Russians are actually Aryans, but even this judgement is fairly inconsistent. If a Slav displays the idealized traits of an Aryan, Vagner may dismiss them as Aryans who have been corrupted by their fellow Untermensh or Slav imitators. Either way, there's no telling who Vagner will judge as worthy of his standards.
• Necessarily Evil: While consolidating his control in the regional stage, Vagner implements even more draconian punishments against the slaves, demanding public, exceptionally cruel executions for any hint of treachery. Vagner himself acknowledges how evil this is, but deems it necessary for the Aryan race as a whole.
• Oblivious to Hints: He has no idea that Germany wants nothing to do with him and his crazy ideas of Russians being Aryans. Whenever the Reich rejects their offers of friendship with radio silence, Vagner comes up with some illogical excuse to explain the mishap and sees it as proof that Russia needs to be further Aryanized.
• Obliviously Evil: Vagner has no self-awareness about his cruelty, admiring himself as a great and virtuous leader. As begins expanding, Vagner is surprised that many supposed Aryans would reject him as a cruel autocrat, but Vagner just rationalizes that they have been brainwashed by their neighbors.
• Playing the Victim Card: To celebrate the conquest of West Siberia, Vagner openly reminisces of how his vision was rejected by so many, who called him a fool and a madman. One of his generals questions if someone ever called him those things, in which Vagner angrily snaps at him.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He denounces the rest of Russia as a "degenerate Slav and Mongol" horde that must be purged, enlisting those who can become "Aryan" and either killing or enslaving the others.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • As part of the Aryan Code, Vagner reels in the Brotherhood's wild, rampaging army because he needs a more disciplined military in the regional stage.
  • Vagner makes token efforts to teach the slaves how to speak Deytsch because letting them speak "inferior Slavic tongues" would create a language barrier that would make it difficult to oversee them.
  • He can scale back on the Brotherhood's imitation of Wehrmacht practices because they lack the means to utilize their exact strategies in combat.
  • While overhauling the military, Vagner has the option to form auxiliary detachments of untermensh collaborators, purely due to manpower shortages and to use as cannon fodder.
• Principles Zealot: Vagner rejects any notion of reforming the old slave system for the sake of long-term survival, proclaiming that the Aryans fear no one.
• Propaganda Machine: In the regional stage, Vagner starts a nation-wide propaganda campaign, mass producing leaflets praising the Aryan race and calling for recruitment.
• Psycho Supporter: Witnessing the strength of the German Wehrmacht during the West Russian War, Vagner began to see Hitler as an icon to be admired, adopting his ideology and military practices.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He considers himself the greatest tyrant in all of Western Russia, even though most would consider him a crazy, tinpot dictator in charge of a petty warlord state.
• The Social Darwinist: Vagner believes that the superior Aryan society must remain pure and totally dominate over the Russian Slavic society.
• Taking Up the Mantle: Subverted. Vagner thinks he's carrying on the legacy of Peter the Great, even though any sane person would say they are nothing alike.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: A very Downplayed, absurd example. Vagner considers his mass enslavement of non-Aryan Russians as a mercy and that they should be thankful that they're not killed immediately.
• We Have Reserves: If he decides to blend German military strategies with Russian ones, Vagner's version of Blitzkrieg involves throwing large waves of foot soldiers against the enemy until they are overwhelmed, losses be damned.
• Young and in Charge: Vagner (Dobrovolsky) was born in 1938, making him just 24 by 1962.

Valery Yemelyanov (Velimir)

Role: Military Commander, Head of State and Head of Government (coup)

Party: Arishe Brudershaft^note Aryan Brotherhood, Slavyanskyy Sobor^note Assembly of the Slavs (post-coup)

Ideology: Slavo-Aryanism^note Ultranationalism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Peering inside the thoughts of Valery Nikolaevich Yemelyanov, one would see visions of a glorious past where Aryans ruled the forests and steppes of the Hyperborean Rus. But the Jew and his Asiatic minions took their land through diabolical machinations, their heritage through Christian indoctrination, and their past through historical revision. For centuries, the Aryans' Slavic descendants wandered blindly through the darkness. But eventually, there were those who rediscovered the lost truths. They understood what had been taken from them and what must be done to guide their race back into the light and reclaim their birthright of blood! But Yemelyanov knew he could never survive on his own. He found an ally in Gutrum Vagner, a lunatic who possessed a sliver of truth buried beneath a heap of delusion. Vagner believed that not only were the German mongrels Aryans, but also Aryanism was a mental state one could achieve if they believed hard enough! Idiotic though he was, he created a fertile ground for the truth to take root. So Yemelyanov bided his time, cloaked in the name and uniform of a racial inferior, until he and his many followers reached the time to strike. Vagner and his band of madmen are now dead, and their blood shall purge their taint from the soil. Taking the title of High Priest Velimir, Yemelyanov has pledged to lead the Aryans in the reconquest of their ancestral homelands. And when all of the Hyperborean Rus has been united beneath the symbol of the holy swastika, Svarog will smile upon His people and His priest!

Zigfrid Shultz, born Valery Nikolayevich Yemelyanov, is a rising star in the Brotherhood with a dedicated vision and a relentless determination. Shultz champions a set of esoteric Aryan beliefs that might shake Vagner's Brotherhood to its core...

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• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • Hyperborea's ruling party is called Slavyanskyy Sobor (meaning Slavic Assembly), which was historically the name of a group of which the real Yemelyanov was a co-founder.
  • While most of TNO Velimir's beliefs are the same as in OTL, they also incorporate some elements of far-right extremist Slavo-Aryan neopaganism that came after him in OTL (most notably the Ynglists), such as the belief that Aryans are descended from alien Hyperboreans.
• Anarcho-Tyranny: His Hyperborean experiment is upheld by his lax control of law enforcement and local leadership. He lets police use whatever violence they feel like using and legalizes all manners of hate crimes against non-Aryans, including torture and public executions.
• Ancient Astronauts: Yemelyanov believes that all Slavs, and therefore the Aryans, are descended from the Hyperboreans, a highly sophisticated race of giants that once dominated the entire planet, and were potentially extraterrestrial in origin.
• Ape Shall Not Kill Ape: His code of ancient laws forbids crimes between Aryans, stating that they shouldn't be harming each other and that there will be severe consequences for anyone caught.
• Arch-Enemy: According to Yemelyanov's theories, there are two human forces that compete in the universe: the spirit and will of the true Aryan people, the Boreal Rus, who have for millennia fought the Eternal Jew, a 'creeping plague that infects our Earth'. One of his first acts after unifying Russia is to call for the conquest of Palestine from the Jews who supposedly drove the Boreal Rus from their ancient home.
• Artistic License: Invoked. Velimir justifies his claims on foreign lands with insane historical revisionism and bizarre folk linguistics - like claiming that Palestine is the ancient Slavic homeland because it actually means paly stan, Russian for "scorched camp"^note Finding "true Slavic etymologies" for foreign words is actually fairly popular among Russian neopagans and in Russian esoteric circles in general, a phenomenon known as zadornovschina.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • If Yemelyanov wins the power struggle, he murders Vagner with a dagger.
  • A later event shows him as High Priest smashing an enemy's body with a hammer before doing the same to a traitor's head.
  • When an officer in the military claims that his goals for further global conquest are impossible, he is shot in the head in response.
• Bastard Understudy: Initially another Brotherhood member who quickly climbs through the ranks and earns his own following amongst their numbers. While he will first make moves to reform certain parts of the AB's rule, his post-coup profile reveals that he actually never believed in Vagner's ideas, and joined the AB with the goal of steering it towards his own vision of Slavic "Aryanism".
• Bait the Dog:
  • Velimir ends the enslavement of the vast majority of the population, believing Slavs to be the true Aryans rather than Untermenschen... only to usher in a regime that is just as brutal and unhinged than that of Vagner, if not more so.
  • In the superregional stage, Velimir lifts the ban on the Maslenitsa holiday, which invites some cautious optimism that this will be a Pet the Dog moment. Unfortunately, Velimir completely twists the occasion into celebrating "Ancient Slavic Aryan traditions", which includes burning Jewish effigies and playing terrible hymns as animals are sacrificed to pagan gods.
• Bludgeoned to Death: Velimir uses "Perun's hammer" to personally execute traitors.
• Book Burning: Deeming most literature as Zionist or Masonic, Velimir orders the mass destruction of books to purge Hyperborea of this supposed deception.
• Boom, Headshot!: Vagner has him killed with a gunshot to the back of his head if his coup fails.
• The Caligula: Whereas Vagner is insane but composed with only occasional anger outbursts and has a more "down-to-earth" rhetoric, Velimir is violently insane and raves about his esoteric Slavic neopagan nonsense at every opportunity.
• Cool Crown: To denote his position as High Priest of Hyperboria, Velimir dons the crown of Perkunas.
• Dark Horse Victory: Shultz is a recent recruit into the Brotherhood, yet quickly climbs their ranks through his charisma alone. In his power struggle with Vagner, he is widely seen as the dark horse of the race and can still emerge on top.
• Death from Above: In his regional military tree, Velimir develops a specialized air force wing of the military, ecstatic about reclaiming the skies for the Aryans.
• Diabolus ex Nihilo: Part of what makes Velimir so scary is that neither the players nor the in-universe public know anything about his past. He does not have an established OTL background like Rodzayevsky or Taboritsky; nor was he broken by the horrors of the Second World War and West Russian War, as Yazov and Vagner were. We can surmise from his OTL biography that he probably suffers from some form of paranoid schizophrenia, but that still does not explain how he became a neo-pagan Slavic supremacist, or why he wants to conquer the world. This arguably makes him even more sinister than the other Nazi-adjacent leaders of Russia: with them, we at least know what made them that way.
• Divine Conflict: Not shown, but such imagery is used in the event "Aid of the Gods". As the pagan priests sacrifice their enemies to Perun, the protagonist of that event sends his prayers to Christ.
  "And into the night, over a humble house of worship, a thunderstorm approached. The gods are at war."
• Do Wrong, Right: Velimir condemns the Nazi regime because he views the Germans as a weak people who have been corrupted by Jewish agents. He even extends this view towards the SS in Burgundy.
• Drums of War: The reunification theme for Hyperborea is "Svetovid" by Jan C. Močninik, signaling the holy war that Velimir intends to wage in Europe and beyond.
• The Empire: Velimir dreams of establishing an Afro-Eurasian continent titled "Greater Hyperborea".
• Establishing Character Moment: Valery Yemelyanov is first introduced in an event where he is initiated into the Aryan Brotherhood. He and another initiate are ordered to kill each other to become a true Aryan, and Yemelyanov kills his fellow initiate without any hesitation.
• Evil Luddite: Downplayed. Modern medicine will eventually be abolished by Velimir, under the belief that it is a Jewish invention and must be avoided. Medical procedures are then replaced with blood rituals that obviously provide no effect. However, he's not blind to the benefits of electrification and believes that this form of technology can reconnect them to the deity, Perun.
• Evil Wears Black: While Vagner wears a feldgrau Wehrmacht uniform, Velimir opts for a Waffen-SS-inspired black outfit instead. He's even worse than Vagner, and is arguably the vilest (if not the most destructive) Russian unifier bar none.
• Fat Bastard: Velimir's portrait makes him look rather portly.
• Faux Affably Evil: Shultz is more soft-spoken and calm than Vagner, but this just belies how crazy and violent he really is, even on a personal level.
• Fighting for a Homeland: A bizarre version, as he intends to expand enough to reach Palestine, an effort he believes to be a reclamation of the original ancient homeland of the Slavo-Aryans, before it was corrupted by "Zionists".
• The Fundamentalist: Velimir assigns priests to every factory so that every citizen and slave can be indoctrinated to his pagan beliefs. If anyone rejects his sermonizing, Velimir will unleash his slavers to have them punished.
• Hauled Before A Senate Subcommittee: When Vagner and Shultz have their confrontation and Vagner retains control of the Brotherhood, Shultz will be reprimanded, held against the AB's tribunal and deemed guilty by their leaders.
• High Priest: After his coup against Vagner, Yemelyanov proclaims himself Velimir, High Priest of Hyperborea and all Rus.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: While OTL Yemelyanov would mostly just publish anti-Semitic literature and ramble about the "Zionist threat" while having some vodka with his friends, this Yemelyanov is actually charismatic, violent and competent enough to become leader of an an entire nation. Also Inverted to a small extent, as he's also not a distinguished professor like his OTL self, and as such is not as intelligent.
• Historical Villain Upgrade:
  • Though he was a hateful Slavic supremacist in real life, the worst real Yemelyanov had done was spreading anti-Semitic propaganda and murdering his wife with an axe. In The New Order, Velimir can take the heinousness of his real life counterpart to an entirely new level and become a brutal dictator who won't only slaughter tens of thousands in Russia in the name of his twisted faith, but also attempt to conquer the world to institute total Slavo-Aryan supremacy.
  • Though the political and religious beliefs of OTL Velimir were already both insane and hateful, his TNO counterpart has an even more stringent definition of a Master Race and even more outrageous beliefs about the history of the world. For instance, he even considers Germans and other Western Europeans subhuman (OTL Velimir still counted them as Aryan, though less pure than the Slavic "Aryan-Veneds" and "tainted" with "Asiatic influences"), and believes Slavs to be descendants of Ancient Astronauts.
  • Real Slavo-Aryanist nutjobs are insanely xenophobic, but not even they advocated Human Sacrifice.
• Human Sacrifice: Much of their opposition ends up sacrificed upon an altar, as the event "Aid of the Gods" describes daggers being plunged into the hearts of their victims.
• Hypocrite: He denounces Central Asians as a mortal enemy to the Russian race for slaughtering and enslaving them in the past, even though he commits those exact same atrocities against his own people.
• I Have Many Names: He can be known by at least three names in TNO: Valery Nikolayevich Yemelyanov (his birth name), Zigfrid Shultz (his "German" name) and Velimir (his "pagan" name).
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: In a successful coup, he kills Vagner by stabbing him in the throat with a dagger.
• Insane Troll Logic: He reasons that the Slavs are the real Aryans because the Reich has been infiltrated by Jews who have hijacked the National Socialist ideology and profess an incorrect definition of an Aryan.
• Interfaith Smoothie: Velimir's neo-paganism is an unholy mishmash of the actual religion of the pre-Christian Rus, the religions of other Slavic^note Belobog, a West Slavic deity, is mentioned in some events and Baltic^note Velimir sometimes calls Perun by his Lithuanian name Perkūnas peoples, Norse paganism, and Hinduism - all with an ultranationalistic flavor. In addition to this, some elements of Christianity are retained: Christian holidays like Maslenitsa are preserved (presumably on the ground that they have pagan roots) and rituals are performed in repurposed Christian churches as well as in the wild. Finally, rather than something actually pagan, Velimir's title is the distinctively Jewish "High Priest". This is Truth in Television: due to the scarcity of historical data about East Slavic paganism, many Russian neopagans adopt elements of other religions to "fill in the gaps", resulting in heavy Norse and Hindu influences.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Given that Yemelyanov is a bloodthirsty, primitivist, fanatically ultranationalistic priest-king, he has very few redeeming qualities in relation to Vagner, but they are indeed there. The most important one is that his loyalty is at least to Russia, the land in which he and Vagner were born, and not to the fascist empire that destroyed it.
  • Also, Shultz first appears as a more moderate option for the Aryan Brotherhood, as he is willing to compromise a little bit and offer more possibility of upward movement for the slaves. This is then Subverted if he actually takes over; he does reduce slavery due to his beliefs of Slavo-Aryanism, but he makes up for it by being even more rabidly purist towards average Russians (to weed out Jewish, Masonic, and Orthodox Christian influences from all Slavo-Aryans), continues the active enslavement/extermination of non-Slavs and "degenerate" Slavs, and has a far more insane plan of world conquest and subjugation.
• Make an Example of Them: Since Hyperboria can't yet make significant overtures to Central Asia, Velimir launches a massive raid against Kazakhstan to show off their might and warn them of what is to come with an even larger invasion.
• Master Race: Yemelyanov believes in the Aryan master race like the rest of the Brotherhood, though in his case it is not the 'Asiatic' Germans, but the Slavs, the Boreal Rus, who are considered to be Aryans.
• Meaningful Rename: Like the Aryan Brotherhood's other members, Valery Yemelyanov gives himself a German name after joining the AB. If he coups Vagner and institutes Slavo-Aryanism, he renames himself to Velimir, a Slavic name which OTL Yemelyanov used among the neo-Pagan community.^note Slavic neopagans like to give themselves names with Slavic origins, as many common Russian names have Hellenic or Latin origins; Yemelyanov's own name "Valery" for instance comes from the Latin Valerius.
• Might Makes Right: Shultz legitimizes the Aryans' dominance to the strength they attained from their pure bloodlines. Designated slaves are permitted to join them, but only after they perform hard and dangerous work to prove their worthiness.
• My Brain Is Big: The Inversion of this is often Discussed by him. He usually refers to the Nazis as having "small brains" for not being able to comprehend his teachings and views about Aryanism.
• Mysterious Past: Not much is known about Yemelyanov prior to his joining of the Brotherhood, leading to much speculation amongst their members. Some claim that he's an agent of a foreign organization while others believe that he is related to their leader and climbs their ranks through nepotism.
• New Era Speech: He delivers these as often as he can, preaching to his followers about the culture and future of Hyperborea and their glory as the "true Aryans". His national reunification news event states that his speeches have traveled across the waters, drawing the world's alarm from his plans of conquest.
• Nostalgia Filter: Velimir's economic policies are inspired from the ancient principles of the "Aryan empire", where the world was supposedly not yet corrupted by Zionists or Bolsheviks.
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: Trumpeting Palestine as the true homeland of the Aryans, Velimir is disgusted that the Jews have been settling the region and intends to march his army there to liquidate or drive them out.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: Velimir despises the Germans, but he does agree with their enslavement of "degenerates" to bleed dry and benefit the state at the cost of their lives.
• Only Sane Man: Subverted hard. Up to the regional stage, Shultz seems to be a breath of fresh air for suggesting that maybe working to exterminate your own culture isn't a very productive or ethical use of the Brotherhood's resources. Any player looking to attempt a "sane" Aryan Brotherhood path by giving Shultz dominance will be promptly disappointed when Shultz declares the Slavs the true Aryans, the Germans to be Jewish agents, and imposes a brutal neopagan theocracy with dreams of global genocide upon West Russia - his only saving grace being that unlike Vagner, he acknowledges that he is Russian and therefore at least believes in the concept of "Russia".
• Patriotic Fervor: Upon his takeover, Velimir urges the Russians to remember their past as Aryan warriors and rejoice in their superiority over the other races.
• Persecuted Intellectuals: One of his national focuses is about purging academia of "subversive" content supposedly of Jewish origin, causing a penalty to the academic base. Any information that would oppose his beliefs, such as modern medicine, are usually deemed "Judean" nonsense. To him, the only source for knowledge should be Perun and his priests.
• Persecution Flip: Velimir's ascension basically causes a flip in the racial hierarchy within the Aryan Brotherhood's clusterfucked belief system: "Slavic" "Aryans" are now the master race who deserve everything in the world, and "German" "Aryans" are now subhumans who deserve nothing but persecution.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Despite fighting Vagner, Shultz's own ideology isn't any more pleasant. He believes in esoteric ideas that Russians are the true Aryans and that they must advance their race by exterminating other groups, including the Jews.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Knowing that the Untermensh outnumber the Aryans nearly two-to-one, Shultz proposes a nationwide fertility program, giving extra rations and financial incentives to Aryan mothers who can bear multiple children.
  • Unlike Vagner, who intends to keep the slaves down indefinitely, Shultz gives them better social mobility in the hierarchy, granting them an opportunity to work for their freedom. However, this is more to stabilize the regime by discouraging rebellion than out of benevolent intention, with Shultz still insulting them as degenerates and enforcing harsh challenges for them to earn their liberation in the first place.
  • He begrudgingly intends to offer industrial workers basic necessities to keep them motivated enough to work for Hyperborea.
  • Those who express total loyalty to him will be rewarded with better quarters and more slaves in order to keep them content.
• The Purge: Velimir enacts a massive purge on non-Slavs, Jews, and degenerates, allowing torture, public execution, and other criminal acts on these elements in order to awaken the Slavs' Aryan mindset and purify Russia into an Aryan nation.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The Aryan Brotherhood as a whole is antisemitic, but Velimir in particular is bloodthirsty against Jews.
• Public Execution: He implements these, using the display to enforce obedience to his rule and standards.
• Purple Is the New Black: The Aryan Brotherhood's event texts frequently use purple to denote Velimir's influence, and if he takes power, the country's colour on the map will change to purple as well. Fittingly enough, Velimir is arguably the second most evil unifier in all of Russia, only matched by the similarity genocidal Taboritsky (who is also associated with purple due to his ideology being Esoteric Nazism).
• Religion of Evil: Velimir's neopagan following deems it necessary to conquer the land that is "rightfully" of the Slavo-Aryan race and to crush all those that stand in their way. Their presentations and discussions are often accompanied by rituals involving sacrificial livestock and choirs of ancient languages.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Zig-Zagged. He's appalled by the slavery system that Vagner imposes, but only because it places Slavs, in his eyes the true Aryans, under subjugation with arbitrary standards. When in power, he frees them from it, but also threatens to place them under this or even more suffering if they do not meet his standards for "Aryanism". Furthermore, he reminisces about the ancient days of pagan civilizations that were able to work their slaves to the bone, before he reluctantly decides to offer their industrial workers the bare minimum for survival.
• The Social Darwinist: He believes that only a rigorous trial that can potentially result in death will be enough to train their soldiers and redeem anyone into the status of an "Aryan." He also intends for military conquest over those he deems "lesser races."
• Space-Filling Empire: Velimir's ideal dream is for a "Greater Hyperborea" to span across Afro-Eurasia, particularly reclaiming the Levant by any means necessary, including nuclear warfare.
• The Spartan Way:
  • The training that Hyperborea implements for soldiers features various beatings and torturous trials, all in the name of creating strong soldiers. The numbers of those in training quickly dwindle as conditions worsen.
  • Velimir forces "degenerate" Russians (Russians who refuse to give up their Russian/Orthodox/Marxist identity) to go through nightmarish "Trials of Redemption" where the vast majority die and the survivors are re-accepted as Aryans. The "cadets" have to go through inhuman training, intense religious indoctrination, and face deadly punishments for failure, with one event mentioning that the final trial before cadets become soldiers is to run across twenty feet of burning coal.
• The Starscream: Shultz's definition of Aryanism doesn't quite align with Vagner's, and once the Aryan Brotherhood unites West Russia, he can make his move, killing the Fyurer and turning the Brotherhood toward Slavo-Aryanism.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Shultz believes that the duty of a woman is to raise as many children as possible so that the Aryan race can flourish.
• Take Over the World: The key trait that makes Velimir an Ultranationalist rather than merely a National Socialist like Vagner is that Velimir has far bigger plans of conquest to "rectify" the world's misconception of Germano-Aryanism and establish the Slavo-Aryans as the real master race. While Vagner only wants to reconquer Russia, Velimir also seeks to conquer Europe from the false German-Aryans, conquer the Slavo-Aryans' ancestral homeland of Palestine, conquer the weak races of Asia, conquer the "Jewish citadel" of America, and launch a thousand more conquests so the true Slavic Aryan master race can unite the world under their rule, even if they have to incite nuclear war in doing so.
• The Theocracy: Hyperborea under High Priest Velimir is a brutal Slavic neopagan theocracy.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The news event for Hyperborea's reunification of Russia notes that its formation is a "cause for significant alarm internationally", due to Velimir's deranged calls for the conquest of Germany, Palestine, and other countries as "Aryan homelands".
• Training from Hell: His "Trials of Redemption" often end with many of its cadets dead in their attempts to earn "Aryan" recognition. The only reason anyone joins them is for the opportunity to prove that they do not deserve to be thrown in prison and left to rot.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • During a night of debate between him and Vagner, he makes the argument that the latter has been putting potential candidates for membership through undeserved anguish as slaves due to an arbitrary definition of "Aryanism" and that his ideology is flawed or even mistaken. While still a follower of his own outlandish beliefs in the name of racial supremacy, these words manage to shake Vagner and the audience to their core.
  • Oddly, Velimir makes a valid criticism of Himmler's hypocrisy, namely in Burgundy's reliance on foreign collaborators, which wouldn't be needed if the SS were part of a supposedly superior race.
• Villainous Breakdown: If Vagner wins the power struggle, Shultz will be dragged to a tribunal so that he will be executed, in which he defiantly denounces his prosecutors as "Zionist rats" and spews all sorts of insults and curses.
• Visionary Villain: Velimir envisions subjugating a massive Afro-Eurasian territory under his esoteric teachings, reclaiming what he perceives to be the true Aryan homeland, all to claim victory over the "eternal Jew" that the "Boreal Rus" has been in struggle against for eons.
• Walking Spoiler: There is no indication that the Aryan Brotherhood can go down an even more insane path until it unifies to the regional level and Shultz makes his move.
• Warhawk: Velimir has no desire to court the other superpowers' favor, not even the Reich. Instead, he sees them all as Zionist agents who must be crushed by a purified, bloodthirsty Aryan army.
• Windmill Crusader: He believes every other nation in the world is somehow being ruled by a global Zionist cabal, in which he gives himself the duty to uproot this imaginary conspiracy.
• Word Salad Philosophy: Yemelyanov has a more consistent (though still completely baseless) set of Slavo-Aryanist beliefs when compared to Dobrovolsky's biological-psychological clusterfuck, but he makes up his insanity points with his far more esoteric and outlandish beliefs. For example, he thinks that Slavs (and Aryans by extension) came from Palestine and are descended from the advanced Hyperborean race, and that Germany is a nation of degenerate "Asiatics" controlled by the Jews.

Non-Unifiers

Order of St. George

Official Name: Order of Saint George, State of the Order of Saint George (regional unification), Holy State of Russia (national unification)

Ruling Party: Orden Svyatogo Georgiya^note Order of Saint George

Ideology: Theocracy^note Despotism

A small Orthodox theocratic state based in Gayny led by Grandmaster Mikhail Antipin, a Soviet veteran who turned to militant Orthodoxy.

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• Church Militant: The Order of Saint George is a warrior monk order named after a famous military saint.
• The Theocracy: Gayny's ruling Order of Saint George is totally devoted to God. They will vehemently reject any atheist or faithless ruler, but will gladly join a ruler that Grandmaster Antipin considers to be sufficiently pious.

Mikhail Antipin

Role: Military Commander, Head of State

Party: Orden Svyatogo Georgiya^note Order of Saint George

Ideology: Theocracy^note Despotism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Mikhail Ivanovich Antipin was originally a humble farmer from Chelyabinsk, one who focused more on day-to-day survival instead of education or philosophical matters. When duty - and the draft - called, he ended up in the infantry as a machine gunner, fighting mostly on the Ukrainian front. He was a rather prolific soldier, even being considered for the Hero of the Soviet Union award at one point. He never was properly honored, however, because the government collapsed shortly after. His brigade fell to infighting, and he fled with nothing but the clothes on his back. After wandering through the wilderness for over a month, Antipin came upon the town of Gayny, where a local priest took him in and nursed him back to health. In the meantime, Antipin had something of a religious awakening, realizing that all these terrible tragedies that shook Russia - the incompetence of the Tsars, the Germans, the October Revolution, the tyranny of the Soviets, the famines, the Germans once more - were not happenstance, but punishments. The people of Russia had forsaken the Lord, so He brought retribution upon them for their sins. This revelation brought a new purpose to Antipin's life. He rallied men from Gayny and the surrounding villages of the Gayny District beneath the banner of what they called the "Order of Saint George", promising to "impale the dragon of atheism upon the lance of truth." The Order is fairly small, but they provide stability and spiritual encouragement for the people of the district, and have proven rather effective at keeping the madmen and heathens surrounding them at bay. Grand Master Mikhail only kneels before God and refuses to suborn the Order to any mortal ruler, but if he discovers a leader who he finds to be sufficiently pious, he will gladly pledge himself and his men to its cause.

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• The Artifact: One of the few (if not only) remnants of an early era in TNO's development where many Russian warlords were obscure Hero of the Soviet Union recipients or other Soviet war heroes that could serve as a blank slate to be molded into whatever role was needed for a storyline.
• Religious Bruiser: An infantryman who converted to Christianity and later founded The Order, which is strong enough to beat back any threats to their community.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: The real Antipin was never ordained as a priest or joined a religious military order like he did in this timeline.
• Turn to Religion: Antipin's unit fell to infighting after World War II, and he was forced to wander in the wilderness for over a month with nothing but his clothes. He was nursed back to health at Gayny by a local priest, and as a result he had a religious awakening and became massively faithful.

Vologda

Official Name: Neutral State of Vologda

Ruling Party: Narodnoye Sobraniye - Klika Ivanova^note People's Assembly - Ivanov's Clique

Ideology: Controlled Democracy^note Paternalism

An armed neutral state between the WRRF and RK Moskowien, which seceded from the WRRF during the final days of the West Russian War. Vologda exists as a buffer state between the WRRF and RK Moskowien, and is currently reluctantly tolerated by both.

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• The Neutral Zone: Vologda is a buffer state between the WRRF and RK Moskowien, and serves as a meeting place between their officials.
• Paper Tiger: On the surface, Vologda's size makes it look like a formidable foe, but by the time the player will need to confront them, they will have already amassed an even larger army and can conquer them with ease.

Vasily Ivanov

Role: Military Commander, Head of State

Party: Narodnoye Sobraniye - Klika Ivanova^note People's Assembly - Ivanov's Clique

Ideology: Controlled Democracy^note Paternalism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Vasily Nikolayevich Ivanov had a humble beginning as a rural shoemaker before being drafted into the Red Army in the 1920s. In the following years, he was able to join the officers' academy and steadily improved his position, holding the rank of Colonel by the time of the German invasion. He and his brigade fought in the ill-fated defense of Moscow, but were able to pull off a relatively orderly retreat when the Mozhaisk line broke and the Wehrmacht poured through. They went in the opposite direction from many of the other veterans and retreated north, falling in with Marshal Voroshilov's forces. Ivanov was promoted to the rank of General in the nascent West Russian Revolutionary Front, and he was one of the commanders who led the charge in the offensive against the Germans. However, the momentum would not last. Betrayal and internal power struggles weakened the Front, and the Germans and their collaborators were soon able to reverse the tide. Having already liberated and occupied his native home of Vologda, Ivanov made the hard decision to abandon his cause, and his army seceded from the Front and declared neutrality. To him, continued involvement with the rapidly-disintegrating Front would have simply brought more bloodshed to a region that had already seen so much. This move has won Ivanov the praise of the people of Vologda, who view him as both the liberator of their city from Nazi tyranny and the bulwark who keeps the chaos of the other warlords at bay. His position has also been reluctantly accepted by both the Front and Reichskommissariat Moskowien, who recognize the usefulness of a buffer state existing between them. But while this policy of armed neutrality has been a successful deterrent in recent years, it is only a matter of time before a warlord calls his bluff and puts his army to the test.

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• Choosing Neutrality: When the Germans started to turn the tides in the West Russian War, Ivanov reluctantly abandoned his cause, seceded from the WRRF and declared neutrality. To him, continued involvement with the disintegrating Front would only bring more bloodshed to his hometown.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Although many in the WRRF scoff in disgust at the very mention of Ivanov's name after he declared neutrality during the West Russian War, they are willing to work with traitors and peacefully reintegrate Vologda to ensure that the lone beacon of socialism in West Russia survives.

Gorky

Official Name: Military Control Commission in Gorky

Ruling Party: Voennaya Kontrolnaya Komissiya v Gor'kom^note Military Control Commission in Gorky

Ideology: Stratocratic Communism^note Communism

A warlord state bordering RK Moskowien led by former WRRF army commander Ivan Chernyakhovsky. During the West Russian War, Chernyakhovsky commanded one of the largest tank armies of the WRRF, and held out at Gorky as the WRRF collapsed. Since then, Chernyakhovsky has grown bitter, angry towards the Germans that conquered Moscow and the Russians who abandoned him. Now, he works hard rebuilding his army, seeking to put the Germans back into the ground.

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• Bilingual Bonus: The text on their flag is Russian for "Guards", symbolizing their continued war of resistance against the neighboring German territories.
• Citadel City: Ever since the collapse of the USSR during the Second World War, the city of Gorky has constantly been at war as a front line city and industrial hub, currently serving as a fortress for the Red Army against the German and anti-Communist Russians and a base to conduct raids into Moskowien.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Their sole mission of fighting the Germans has forced Gorky to overindustrialize and burn through their natural resources, which will inevitably give out. A national spirit gives them significant debuffs due to their heavy emphasis on militarism.
• Hold the Line: The constant German bombing and its position surrounded by enemies has made the Control Commission ruling the city desperate to hold out for reinforcement from the WRRF, worsened by their military-industrial complex running the risk of collapsing due to the sheer amount of resources being consumed.
• The Remnant: The Military Control Commission in Gorky has not given up on their fight against the Germans and still conducts raids into Moskowien, producing whatever material they need to keep invading.
• Tank Goodness: Thanks to the massive Automotive Plant of Gorky, a large fleet of tanks can be manufactured and fielded to raid Moskowien's frontier.

Ivan Chernyakhovsky

Role: Head of State

Party: Voennaya Kontrolnaya Komissiya v Gor'kom^note Military Control Commission in Gorky

Ideology: Stratocratic Communism^note Communism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky has had his soul snuffed out by the blaze of the Russian Anarchy - yet he can count himself among the lucky ones. This wasteland has done far worse.

His transformation began during the West Russian War, when Ivan Chernyakhovsky commanded the Eighth Army. In those days, Chernyakhovsky was a cheerful commander. When Gavrilov began his retreat, Chernyakhovsky pulled back to Gorky, tearing across the rising chaos of Russia.

Yet the nation he returned to was as lost as the territory he escaped. The people had become deluded with reaction, jeering at the Red Army. Communists were tearing the stars off their suits and goose-stepping with fascists and capitalists. By the time he reached Gorky, there was nothing left in Chernyakhovsky but anger - towards the Germans that destroyed his home, and the Russians that betrayed it.

Trapped in Gorky, all that guides Chernyakhovsky is bitterness and duty. With Russia lost, he has focused his attention on weakening the Reich with his remaining forces. The battle with Germany is the last hope for Communism - it must be continued, despite the cost.

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• Despair Event Horizon: Chernyakhovsky used to be an idealistic commander, but his service in the West Russian War and the collapse of the Red Army have since disillusioned him. Now Chernyakhovsky feels nothing but rage for the Germans who ravaged his country and the Russians who've given up on the Soviet Union.
• Determinator: Long after the WRRF's defeat in the West Russian War, Chernyakhovsky has never given up on both communism and fighting the Germans, and demeans most Russians for abandoning the cause. Trapped in Gorky and bitterly resentful towards the Germans and anti-Communist Russians, he has decided to devote his attention to weakening Germany with all that he has left, seeing the battle with Germany as the last hope for communism.
• Warhawk: He hasn't given up on his crusade to liberate Moscow and is still trying to fight the Germans, long after the West Russian War ended.

Pyotr Lashchenko

Role: First Deputy Commander-in-Chief^note Head of Government

Party: Voennaya Kontrolnaya Komissiya v Gor'kom^note Military Control Commission in Gorky

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Focus. Scrutinous labor. The unwavering Pyotr Lashchenko perceives the same value in these pillars in battle as he does administration. In the face of isolation from the larger First Guards Tank Army, facing the iron wrath of the Wehrmacht, neither he nor the Ninth Mechanized Corps were vanquished. Deprived of a united motherland, his loyalty has fallen to the Control Commission in Gorky.

However, boisterousness invariably fetters diligence. Consequently, Pyotr is content to remain quiet, to let his colleagues within the Control Commission bicker over political scraps. In his new function as administrator, he toils away, tending to the basic function and fabric of administrative work.

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• The Quiet One: After his Ninth Mechanized Corps was left behind in Gorky, he took up administrative duty in the Control Commission as a capable administrator who keeps out of the political infighting, content to keep quiet.
• Workaholic: Lashchenko is a diligent administrator toiling away at work for the state.

Mikhail Katukov

Role: Head of the Communication Department^note Foreign Minister

Party: Voennaya Kontrolnaya Komissiya v Gor'kom^note Military Control Commission in Gorky

Ideology: Stratocratic Communism^note Communism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Every fire within a man's soul will one die out. It is with this in mind that one ought to look up to the men whose hearts burn so brightly that they keep the fires of those around them burning. And there is no fire as fierce in Gorky as that of Katukov, commander of the legendary First Guards Tank Army. Katukov is a man whose iron will and commitment to socialism have never faltered no matter the times.\\\His many distinctions during the Great Patriotic War and the West Russian War ensured that even as the front collapsed, he held firm near the frontline city of Gorky. His many accomplishments would even turn him into kingmaker of the city, facilitating Chernyakhovsky's rise to Chairman.\\\Nowadays he remains as the city's contact to the outside, constantly in communication with the Front's leadership and the many partisan groups in Moskowien. If a man keeps the war alive even today years after its supposed end, it is Katukov.

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• Determinator: Katukov is fiercely committed to socialism no matter the challenges and whose passion inspires those around him to continue the war against Germany.
• War Hero: Katukov is the commander of the First Guards Tank Army and fought in the Second World War and West Russian War who played a key role in the defence of Gorky and the rise of Chernyakhovsky to Chairman. At game start he continues his duties by representing the city in communication with the WRRF and various partisan groups in Moskowien.

Boris Golovchiner

Role: Head of the Economic Department^note Economy Minister

Party: Voennaya Kontrolnaya Komissiya v Gor'kom^note Military Control Commission in Gorky

Ideology: Stratocratic Communism^note Communism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}In a land of sorrow, it is such a terrible thing to even feel a modicum of responsibility. Boris Golovchiner, once Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army, now holds the important task of ensuring Gorky's autarky. Thankfully, the impromptu economist has a talent for resource management. Such is his skill that it is common knowledge in government that they owe him a great debt.

So why does his chest not fill with pride? Smiles and thanks for the appreciation is what Gorky sees, but his mind speaks a different truth. His policies have won no warm feelings from the workers or civilians, for his policies have won them no warmth. Every day, this truth crushes the Socialist Soldier more and more.

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• Beneath the Mask: Golovchiner holds the responsibility of managing Gorky's resources to ensure autarky and does so with exceptional skill. But despite the praise he receives, he harbours great doubts about his role as the livelihoods of the workers continue to suffer.

Mikhail Shalin

Role: Deputy Commander-in-Chief for Civil Administration Affairs^note Security Minister

Party: Voennaya Kontrolnaya Komissiya v Gor'kom^note Military Control Commission in Gorky

Ideology: Stratocracy^note Ultranationalism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}The Front shattered. Battered in its fight against the Nazi hordes and betrayed from the inside, it was unable to keep fighting. Or at least that was what many believed. For others the fight was never over, simply entering a lull. Former chief of staff of the First Guards Tank Army, Mikhail Shalin was one such man.\\\As the front halted, he refused to head to the relative safety of the north. Instead, he scoffed at it and all those who escaped the frontlines. Mikhail chose that he would remain in the very front till dead tore him away. It was this iron will that left him as the chief of the Front's Main Intelligence Directorate, working tirelessly from dusk till dawn to ensure that Gorky remained fighting.

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• Knight Templar: Whilst others have given up in the fight against Germany, Shalin vows to continue fighting no matter what, scoffing at the WRRF who retreated to the north and working ceaselessly to keep Gorky's war machine running every day.
• Taking You with Me: Shalin willingly chose to remain at the front, vowing to fight Germany until his death.
• Token Evil Teammate: Shalin stands out as the sole Stratocratic member of the cabinet determined to continue the war against Germany no matter what.

Tatarstan

Official Name: Tatarstan Respublikası^note Republic of Tatarstan

Ruling Party: Bötentatar İctimaği Üzäge^note All Tatar Social Center

Ideology: Social Nationalism^note Paternalism

A Tatar ethnic republic. It was founded after USSR's collapse and since then was always neutral in Russian regional politics.

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• Enemy Mine: Despite their mutually distrustful relationship, they briefly cooperated with the Red Army during the West Russian War, but once the latter tried extending a draft to the Tatars, their relationship broke apart.
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: In the twilight of the West Russian War, Tatarstan fought to secede from the West Revoluiontary Front and have since succeeded.

Abdulla Aliş

Role: Head of State

Party: Bötentatar İctimaği Üzäge^note All Tatar Social Center

Ideology: Social Nationalism^note Paternalism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Abdulla Aliş may have been a Soviet citizen, but he is always a Tatar first, and he holds his homeland above all else. A son of peasant, Aliş became known as one of the foremost Tatar writers and journalists. In the years of World War II, he served in the Red Army and narrowly escaped the German capture near the city of Bryansk. When the Union collapsed, he simply stayed at home. The Tatar Autonomous SSR may have escaped the worst of the war, but thousands of its men were still sent off to never return. More importantly, they got their first taste of real freedom since the abortive Idel-Ural State of 1920. And once they had it, they were not eager to give it up. When the West Russian Revolutionary Front demanded suzerainty, the Tatars only accepted in exchange for significant autonomy and exemption from Russian laws. They had a tense, but peaceful, co-existence with the Front until the West Russian War, when the Russians tried to extend the Red Army draft to the Tatars. The thought of having to spill Tatar blood in a Russian war once again was too much for many to bear, Aliş included. The Tatar people took up arms, fighting for the freedom they were long denied. Aliş made his name as a national poet and a war hero in the time, renowned for both his battlefield and rhetorical prowess. When the Soviet army under General Pyotr Gavrilov gave way and retreated further north, people heaped laurels upon Aliş and proposed he be elected mayor of Kazan. Being the highest-ranked civilian official, he was effectively the first President of Tatarstan, and it was his signature that ratified the Tatar constitution. He has helped earn his native land's freedom, and he will fight bitterly to defend it.

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• Patriotic Fervor: Even though he was once a Soviet citizen, his true loyalties lie in Tatarstan and he'll protect their independence to the bitter end.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: In real life, Abdulla Aliş was a poet and resistance fighter that was never actually involved in politics. In TNO, his prowess in battle resulted in his election as Mayor of Kazan and eventually President of Tatarstan.

Ibragim Mingazeyev

Role: Head of State (Onega deunification)

Party: Bötentatar İctimaği Üzäge^note All Tatar Social Center

Ideology: Liberalism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}The story of the Tatar Republic is in many ways similar to that of the other nations in the Idel-Ural: oppression under the resurgent West Russian state, until the chaos that Onega's victory brought allowed a national revival. Ibragim Zafirullovich Mingazeyev got to witness it for himself, as an aspiring writer recruited into the Red Army only for it to disintegrate. Twice the Tatars were brought under the Russians' fold again: once until Aliş set the Republic free, and once again until the Anti-Communist Guard arrived. Mingazeyev, already a member of a circle dedicated to Tatar rights and autonomy, was chosen to be the leader of a new democracy. Now, his only wish is for the nation to thrive and for him to continue the legacy of Aliş and all who came before him.

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• Reasonable Authority Figure: He's wary of future Russian attempts to infringe on Tatar independence, but he is still willing to cooperate with Onega to join in the same faction in exchange for securing Tatarstan's independence.
• Taking Up the Mantle: After Tatarstan regains independence as a result of Onega defeating the West Russian unifier, Mingazeyev vows to continue the legacy of Abdulla Aliş and all who came before him.

Bashkiria

Official Name: Republic of Bashkortostan, Republic of Bashkortostan (Onega client state)

Ruling Party: Bašǩort Milli Häräkäte^note Bashkir National Movement

Ideology: Social Nationalism^note Paternalism

A Bashkir ethnic republic.

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• The Theocracy: The Islamic Republic of Bashkurdistan is organised along religious lines, with imams in charge of major decisions and subjecting people to Islamic law.

Ähmätzäki Välidi Tugan

Role: Head of State

Party: Bašǩort Milli Häräkäte^note Bashkir National Movement

Ideology: Social Nationalism^note Paternalism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}The story of Ähmätzäki Välidi Tuġan, or merely Zeki Velidi Togan as was more known abroad, is, in many ways, reflective of the Bashkir history in the 20th century - the formation of identity in the youth, the upheaval in the days of the Russian Civil War, a shameful detachment from the heritage, and, finally, a second chance to prove himself. A descendant of the Muslim clergy, Välidi became known as an accomplished Turkologist scholar and researcher of the Bashkir nation in the later days of the Russian Empire. In those days, he started his political activity on the behalf of the Russian Muslim community and advocate of the Bashkir autonomy. Following the two Russian Revolutions, Välidi became one of the most popular spokesmen for the Bashkir nationalism. Initially cooperating with the Bolsheviks, believing their promises to break the Tsarist prison of the peoples, he later realized that behind their slogans hides the great Russian chauvinism that oppressed its little nations since the emergence of the Tsar's power. Driven away from Bashkortostan, he continued to struggle against the autocratic Soviet power together with the Basmachi movement in Central Asia, but to no avail. Forced into exile, detached from his roots, Välidi continued his intellectual labor abroad, keeping the Bashkir intellectual tradition alive even far away from the home. As the independent Bashkir Islamic Republic was proclaimed in the chaos of the West Russian War, few people expected that Välidi will ever become a relevant person in the chaotic Bashkir politics, if the younger generations could ever remember his name. How wrong were they! The journey from Turkey to the middle of the conflict-ridden Russia was not an easy task. His contributions were acknowledged in his motherland and he found no problem to rise as the Bashkir national leader in the time of the greatest challenge to the Bashkir and Muslim sovereignty in their own lands.

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• The Exile: Once the Bolsheviks took power, they exiled Tugan for his outspoken calls for Bashkortostan independence. After Russia fell into anarchy, Tugan returned to govern the newly-independent Bashkiria, much to the surprise of everyone.
• This Is My Name on Foreign: His name is spelt as both Ähmätzäki Välidi Tugan in his native Bashkir and Zeki Velidi Togan in Turkish.

Faizrakhman Zagafuranov

Role: Head of State (Onega deunification)

Party: Bašǩort Milli Häräkäte^note Bashkir National Movement

Ideology: Conservatism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Faizrakhman Zagafuranovich Zagafuranov has lived in the Bashkir lands for all of his life. As a young man, he began climbing the endless ladder of Soviet bureaucracy but it was too late, for the USSR fell and took the ladder down with it. While a sense of despair took him over with the disaster of the Great Patriotic War, his activism for Bashkir rights paid off in the end, as the Republic of Bashkiria earned its independence in the bloody aftermath of the West Russian War, and Zagafuranov was part of it. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and Bashkiria was crushed once more under the Russian jackboot, or at least until the liberators came from the north. With little regard from what went on far in the south as long as their puppet governments remained, the Anti-Communist Guard had no problem with releasing the nations of the Idel-Ural once more. Zagafuranov seemed a competent administrator and a passionate leader, and so the decision was taken in Arkhangelsk. The official was chosen to be the new President of the Republic of Bashkortostan, and it seems as if he will remain in that position for a long time.

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• Taking Up the Mantle: He took part in securing Bashkiria's independence after the West Russian War and takes over as leader to continue pursuing that goal after Onega divides West Russia.

Onega

^{Flag of the Northern Russian Republic}

Official Name: Anti-Communist Volunteer Guard, Northern Russian Republic (regional 'unification')

Ruling Party: Pervaya Dobrovolcheskaya Anti-Kommunisticheskaya Gvardiya^note First Anti-Communist Volunteer Guard

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

A Finland-backed anticommunist warlord state.

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• Allohistorical Allusion: The emblem on Onega's flag is the same one used by OTL's West Russian Volunteer Army, a White Russian volunteer army created by Germany.
  • The flag at the regional "unification" is the same flag as OTL Arkhangelsk Oblast.
• Anarchy Is Chaos: The lack of stability in Onega has created a banditry problem. Effort must be put to stemming the problem and protecting Onega's property against these groups.
• Balkanize Me: If Onega divides Western Russia and subsequently defeats the unifier of Western Siberia, Western Siberia will collapse back to a second warlord era, though this time with the Northern Russian Republic as a hegemon who unites all the little warlord states under one faction.
• Les Collaborateurs: The Volunteer Anti-Communist Guard consists of Russians backed by Finland to topple the West Russian Revolutionary Front.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When a Western Russia unifier manages to reach an agreement with Finland over annexing Onega, the Anti-Communist Volunteer Guard sometimes might refuse to give in to Finland's orders and resist to the bitter end, resulting in Finland rescinding their backing and forcing West Russia's unifier to invade Onega, with very predictable results.
• Dark Horse Victory: If Onega emerges victorious against the war with the West Russian unifier, it will annex the northern half of Western Russia (ending in a line going from Kostroma to Gayny), form the Northern Russian Republic, and release many client states^{Full list of states} Free City of Nizhny Novgorod, Mari El Republic, Principality of Vyatka, Perm Antifascist Committee, Tatar Republic, Udmurt Republic, People's Assembly of Samara, and Republic of Bashkortostan (not puppet states) in the southern half of Western Russia because it is not strong enough to govern all the territory. It then gets a new focus tree where it democratizes, unifies Western Russia under a defensive alliance called the West Russian Defence Pact, and deposes Blokhin's Vorkuta if it still exists^note Vorkuta is incidentally the only bit not touched by Zlatoust if Zlatoust also divides their region.
• Enemy Mine: The Russians of Onega aren't fond of collaborating with Finland, but they recognize that they would stand zero chance against the West Russian Revolutionary Front without their help.
• Historical In-Joke: Onega's flag contains the emblem of the West Russian Volunteer Army, a German-backed anti-Bolshevik Russian army in the Baltics during the Russian Civil War.
  • Onega's flag at the regional "unification" is the same flag as OTL's Arkhangelsk Oblast
• Last Stand: As the last independent statelet standing in the way of West Russian reunification, the battalions of Onega steel themselves for a difficult final battle, declaring their intent to fight to the last man and defeat the enemy.
• The Migration: In exchange for receiving whatever land they win in the upcoming war with the West Russian Revolutionary Front, Onega agreed to receive and ressettle the Russians who once lived in Eastern Karelia, who were subject to Finnish ethnic cleansing.
• Recruiting the Criminal: In order to deal with the banditry in its territory, Onega can bribe these vagabonds and outlaws into serving in the Anti-Communist Volunteer Guard, in return for a pardon and a living wage.
• Taking Up the Mantle: After 'unifying' Western Russia, the Northern Russian Republic emphasises its democratic connections to Alexander Kerensky's short-lived Russian Republic.
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: Downplayed. Defeating the West Russian unifier means a rapid expansion eastward, leaving Onega to deal with the communist partisans who still offer resistance against them. However, these partisans will eventually be dealt with and West Russia will be deunified into a federation of independent democracies.

Vladimir Kirpichnikov

^{Regional 'unification' Kirpichnikov portrait}

Role: Head of State

Party: Pervaya Dobrovolcheskaya Anti-Kommunisticheskaya Gvardiya^note First Anti-Communist Volunteer Guard

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism, Paternalistic Conservatism^note Conservatism (Regional "Unification")

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Before the Second World War, Vladimir Vasilevich Kirpichnikov was nothing more than an ordinary commander in the Red Army. Many thought he was destined to die as a hero of the Soviet Union, bravely fighting against the enemy, but that was not to be his fate. In the few months of fighting Russia experienced, before collapsing into chaos and warlordism, Kirpichnikov would lead the 43rd Rifle Division into battle against the Finns in the Karelian Isthmus. The superior enemy tactics would cause the Soviet front to collapse, and the 43rd Division was almost destroyed. Kirpichnikov was captured during the chaotic retreat, and would be interrogated and interned by the Finnish Army. The major general would remain imprisoned, until the West Russian War came. Ever since the end of the war on the Eastern Front, Finland had been protected from the chaos in Russia by the Wehrmacht, but once the West Russian Revolutionary Front stormed the A-A line, Finland was in danger. Now, they could not simply trust the Reich to protect the frontier. To solve this problem, the Finns would gather the Anti-Communist Volunteer Guard, a force composed of Russians in their territories and led by none other than Kirpichnikov himself. The promise made by Finland, which kept a tight leash on the Guard, was that should they drive the Reds out of Arkhangelsk, they could have the land to settle and be independent. Now, Kirpichnikov rules the small warlord state centered in Onega, and must stand up against the power that is the WRRF. The Finnish still maintain some control over it, but should Kirpichnikov's Guard liberate Arkhangelsk from the hold of the Communists, the Russians of Karelia might finally be free once again.

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• Ambiguously Evil: Throughout an Onega playthrough, it's left ambiguous as to whether Kirpichnikov is a genuine Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to liberate the people of Russia or a power-hungry dictator who makes empty promises of liberalization to keep his authority. If Onega balkanizes West Russia, the former interpretation will be proven correct.
• Heel–Face Turn: Initially, all we see of Kirpichnikov is a collaborator despot who constantly makes promises of democratization while suppressing dissidence in his fiefdom. After Onega divides Western Russia, Kirpichnikov actually democratizes the Northern Russian Republic, ends the suppression against civilians, and delivers on his promises.
• Puppet King: Kirpichnikov's authority is entirely reliant on Finnish aid and he knows it, except if he manages to defeat the unifier of West Russia and splits the region to create his own faction, the West Russian Defense Pact, filled with friendly client states to Onega.
• The Quisling: Kirpichnikov collaborates with Finland to 'liberate' Russia from the hold of communism.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: After Kirpichnikov 'unifies' Western Russia and forms the Northern Russian Republic, he switches his military uniform for a civilian suit, signifying that he is now President of a democratic republic instead of a military dictator.
• We Used to Be Friends: He once fought alongside the men of the West Russian Revolutionary Front, but he's now formed an anti-communist clique that firmly opposes their ideology. However, Kirpichnikov still holds fond memories of his former comrades.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He commits morally questionable actions that suppress dissident activity and commit several human rights abuses, but it's all in the name of ensuring that Onega won't fall prey to exploitative and even more dangerous extremists.

Onega Deunification (Spoilers)

Free City of Nizhny Novgorod

Official Name: Free City of Nizhny Novgorod

Ruling Party: Industrialisty^note Industrialists

Ideology: Liberalism

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• Merchant City: Nizhny Novogorod repurposes the Gorky Automobile Plant to produce and sell vehicles to its neighboring warlord states, a far more productive use of the facility than Chernyakhovsky's raids.

Konstantin Katushev

Role: Head of State

Party: Industrialisty^note Industrialists

Ideology: Liberalism

In-Game Biography (Gorky) ^{Click to Show} Much like most people in the city, the life of Konstantin Fedorovich Katushev was definitively shaped by the Gorky Automobile Plant. Even in his childhood, he lived near the factory, while his father had worked there for almost his entire life. No one was surprised when Konstantin grew up to become a leading engineer of GAZ, designing and perfecting plans for new and better vehicles. Truth be told, he was never satisfied with who he worked for. The warmongering tank pirates of Gorky were no fit for a quiet and intelligent man like Katushev, and neither were the new rulers of the city. However, the Northern Russian Republic proved to be the perfect match: combining the newly found stability with the capabilities of GAZ, Katushev now proudly runs not only the factory, but the entire city, bringing many profits to the Republic, and achieving his life's dream.

See his entry on the Komi subpage.

Mari El Republic

Official Name: Mari El Republic

Ruling Party: Mariyskoye Respublikanskoye Dvizheniye^note Mari Republican Movement

Ideology: Liberal Conservatism

A Mari ethnic republic.

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• Out of Focus: The Mari El Republic is the only warlord state to not get a specific event detailing their negotiations with Onega when they divide Russia. Instead, the Mari El Republic's negotiations are only briefly mentioned in the same event covering Boris I and Vyatka.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Having long been denied their nationhood by Russia, both by socialists and monarchists, the Mari people finally achieve independence after Onega balkanizes West Russia.

Miklay Kazakov

Role: Head of State

Party: Mariyskoye Respublikanskoye Dvizheniye^note Mari Republican Movement

Ideology: Liberal Conservatism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show} The Mari people had long been denied their nationhood by every Russian state and its successors who ruled over them. Whether they bore the red banner of socialism or the tricolor, it was all the same, but Miklay Ivanovich Kazakov made it his life's goal to change that. As the victory of the Anti-Communist Guard in West Russia became almost an inevitability, he rallied ethnic Mari across the region to join a Mari Regiment which fought alongside the Guard.

Labelled the "warrior poet" by his compatriots, as he always kept a passion for poetry and literature, Kazakov was the obvious choice to be placed as the leader of the first ethnic Mari state and so he became.

The Republic has been another success story for North Russia, as Kazakov has stabilized it and looks to other states of the Idel-Ural as well as Arkhangelsk for cooperation and solidarity.

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• Occupiers Out of Our Country: Kazakov made it his life's goal to secure an independent Mari nation, and joins forces with the Anti-Communist Volunteer Guard for this purpose.

Principality of Vyatka

Official Name: Principality of Vyatka

Ruling Party: Vserossiyskiy Natsional'nyy Soyuz^note All-Russian National Union

Ideology: Paternalistic Conservatism^note Conservatism

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• The Remnant: The principality is all that's left of Vladimir's clique of monarchists upon Onega's deunification of Russia, with Boris I masquerading as their new Tsar.

Boris Skosyrev

Role: Head of State

Party: Vserossiyskiy Natsional'nyy Soyuz^note All-Russian National Union

Ideology: Paternalistic Conservatism^note Conservatism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}The story of West Russia's last monarch, Boris I, is a bizarre, yet fascinating one. Boris Mikhailovich Skosyrev was born to a rich family in Vilna, then part of the Russian Empire. While he was a member of a family that belonged to the gentry, he was never a claimant to any throne by birth - but what he couldn't get through his bloodline, he would earn on his own.

When the October Revolution broke out, Boris fled and became one of the many emigrés. He would soon distinguish himself in the British Foreign Office, partaking in many missions before arriving in the Netherlands and then finding where his most famous adventure so far would unfold: the country of Andorra. After carefully plotting, he took the title of Prince with popular support in the 1930s, and promised to bring Andorra into the modern age. He would soon be arrested and imprisoned, but luckily, after spending a few years in prisons around Western Europe, he would be released by the Nazi occupation authorities and begin to collaborate with them. With the advent of the West Russian War and Tsar Vladimir's expedition, he gladly joined him, and stood by him as a loyal liaison - until it became inconvenient to do so.

Skossyrev would not stay idle as the Anti-Communist Guard achieved victory after victory. One day, as the troops came closer to Vyatka, he would come to the city center, guns blazing, and declare the former West Russian authority to have ended, replaced by Kirpichnikov's army. In the place of the city's corrupt rulers, Boris I now rules as Prince of Vyatka and guardian of the frontier, in the name of the Anti-Communist Guard and the Russian people. For how long this principality will last, who knows.

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• Ascended Extra: He's a minor character in Vyatka's storyline, but he can take control of the state if Onega "unifies" West Russia.
• Les Collaborateurs: Boris was arrested by the Nazis during WWII, and after being released began collaborating with them, and he eventually joined Vladimir's expedition during the West Russian War.
• Con Man: He scams people into thinking that he's royalty to secure more power for himself, utilizing his charisma to lower his victims' guards and weasel concessions with the people he negotiates with.
• Fake Aristocrat: Boris is a minor noble who pretended to be a royal Prince called Boris I in Andorra in the 1930s. If Onega divides West Russia, he will do it again in Vyatka.
• Opportunistic Bastard: After Onega divides West Russia, Boris will seize the opportunity to carve out his own little kingdom, and restore the now-leaderless Principality of Vyatka with himself in charge.
• The Slacker: If sent to the United States to further relations between the Tsardom and the OFN, Boris spends most of his time partying and going to nightclubs, instead of actually doing his job.

Udmurt Republic

Official Name: Udmurt Republic

Ruling Party: Udmurtskaya Partiya Svobody^note Udmurt Freedom Party

Ideology: Liberal Conservatism

An Udmurt ethnic republic.

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• Throw the Dog a Bone: After enduring Russian occupation, the Udmurt people finally live out their dreams of independence after Onega "unifies" West Russia and allows them to form their own nation. Even better, it's described that their cities are quite comfortable, in which one member of Onega thinks about reassigning to Izhevsk because of how friendly the place was.

Yakov Panteleev

Role: Head of State

Ideology: Liberal Conservatism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Yakov Elizarovich Panteleyev is a veteran of more wars than most. Born in a village of Udmurtia, he was a farmer until he was drafted into the Red Army mere days after the start of the Great Patriotic War. He bravely defended cities far from his homeland in the Idel-Ural, which earned him many medals and promotions, and fought until the Germans reached the banks of the Volga, and all hope was lost. Still a patriot at heart, Panteleyev volunteered to join a unit of ethnic Udmurts in the West Russian War, but once again, Russia faced defeat at the hands of the Wehrmacht, and from there the officer faded into obscurity.

That was, until the Anti-Communist Guard reigned supreme over northwestern Russia and authority in the Volga region collapsed. As a respected army commander, Yakov was unanimously elected by a hurriedly formed local council as the new President of the Udmurt Republic, in association with the Northern Russian Republic as a loyal ally.

For the first time, Panteleyev's people have a nation for themselves, and he would like to keep it that way.

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• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: After being discharged from the Red Army following the end of World War II, the real Panteleev became leader of a collective farm. In TNO, after the Anti-Communist Volunteer Guard pacifies Western Russia, he becomes President of the Udmurt Republic.
• War Hero: Panteleev has participated in a variety of wars, including World War II and the West Russian War.

Perm Antifascist Committee

Official Name: Perm Antifascist Committee

Ruling Party: Permskiy Antifashistsky Komitet^note Perm Antifascist Committee

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

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• La Résistance: The Antifascist Committee is a band of fighters who have fought the Aryan Brotherhood in the outskirts of Perm, after they took over the city.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After years of toiling under the Aryan Brotherhood's insane rule, the people of Perm are freed and benevolently led by Medvedev after Onega balkanizes West Russia.

Alexander Medvedev

Role: Head of State

Party: Permskiy Antifashistsky Komitet^note Perm Antifascist Committee

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}The distaste of Onega's Guard for fascists is equal - if not greater - to that for communists, and that is especially true for a cult as horrendous as the Aryan Brotherhood, that for years was a taint on the city of Perm and beyond. However, there was one man who promised to make it all disappear: Alexander Egorovich Medvedev, a lumberjack and a war hero. After fighting his way from the fields of Ukraine back to his beloved homeland near Perm, he was determined to live a quiet life, but the circumstances forced him to do otherwise. A vile force had appeared in the city, and Medvedev took up arms to fight it. For years, he and his band fought in the outskirts of Perm against the Russian Nazis, but their salvation came with the arrival of the Onega Guard, who saw his value as a satellite to the North Russian Republic. Medvedev now rules benevolently as warlord and leader of the Anti-Fascist Committee in the area, unwilling to stop until every hint of the Brotherhood's existence and every one of its supporters is gone.

A Soviet war veteran who heads an anti-Nazi resistance group in the outskirts of his Nazi-occupied hometown of Perm.

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• Crusading Widower: In one of Vyatka's superregional events, Medvedev quietly pays respects to his wife, who was killed by the Aryan Brotherhood before he took up arms against them.
• Old Friend: In the event where a representative from the Northern Russian Republic (Onega post-"unification") approaches Medvedev to discuss a treaty of friendship and collaboration, the representative sent is a soldier named Ivan Smirnov, who is Medvedev's childhood friend and comrade-in-arms during World War II. The two immediately embrace each other upon meeting, celebrate with a night of drinking, and sign an extensive treaty of friendship the next day.

People's Assembly of Samara

Official Name: People's Assembly of Samara

Ruling Party: Narodnaya Assambleya Samary^note People's Assembly of Samara

Ideology: Left-Wing Populism^note Progressivism

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• Mundane Luxury: Following their negotiations, Onega begins delivering everyday goods to Samara, such as fruit and clothing. Due to their short supply in the warlord era, the people practically consider them luxuries and, more importantly, it's what makes them content to join their defensive alliance out of gratitude.

Viktor Polyakov

Role: Head of State

Party: Narodnaya Assambleya Samary^note People's Assembly of Samara

Ideology: Left-Wing Populism^note Progressivism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Much like his colleague to the northwest, Viktor Nikolayevich Polyakov was a simple factory director before power was thrust upon him. Born in Siberia, he found himself in the right - or wrong - spot at the right time to be sent as an industrial advisor of a rapidly collapsing WRRF to the city of Samara on the banks of the Volga, and for the next few years, that was where he operated. Polyakov rose fast in the vehicle industry, even competing against Katushev in the same market. In the end, that profession was what made him well known in the city, and when the time came, got him elected as the leader of the local People's Assembly and mayor of Samara. Polyakov now balances a life of economics and governing a primitive and fragile democracy in accord with North Russia's wishes. While ruling as a warlord can be hard for someone with little experience in that regard, Polyakov knows to turn to the fellow magnate in Nizhny Novgorod when things really get tough.

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• The Rival: his participation in the vehicle industry made him a direct competitor to Katushev in Gorky.
• Unfit for Greatness: He has good intentions, but he's completely inexperienced in the field of politics, making him easy to manipulate during foreign negotiations. Luckily for him, the only time he negotiates with someone is Onega, who guarantees Samara's independence and offers to give them supplies in exchange for allying with them.

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