Russia

"We will take the fight to their people, to their land, to their blood!"

- Reznov seeking revenge on Nazi Germany

Russia is a country that was mostly portrayed as the main antagonist to United States of America and Nazi Germany; though the Soviet Union collapsed and the modern Russian Federation succeeded its place in the world, internal affairs in the nation continue to place it at odds with the Western world in the Call of Duty timeline.

Call of Duty
As a major participant in World War II, Russia is home to many characters and events in the Call of Duty series. Most games, but not all, in the Call of Duty series has at least one playable Russian character.

Call of Duty 1 and Call of Duty: United Offensive
There is a Soviet campaign in CoD1 and UO. In CoD1 the player takes control of Alexei Ivanovich Voronin of the 13th Guards Rifle Division in the battle of Stalingrad. He fights in underground sewers and the Battle for Pavlov's House.

The player also takes control of a tank commander in the liberation of Poland.

The final Soviet character the player plays as is a soldier in the Final Battle for Berlin, where the rising of the Soviet Flag over the Reichstag takes place.

Call of Duty: Finest Hour
The player takes control of various Russians during the course of the game.

Call of Duty 2
The first mission of the game puts the player in control of Vasili Ivanovich Koslov of the Red Army. In this mission, Commissar Letlev will train Vasili in the art of marksmanship. This mission takes place during the Battle of Moscow, and after his basic training, Vasili himself takes part in the skirmish. After this mission, Vasili takes place in house to house fighting in Stalingrad. He aids the Red Army in repairing telephone wires, taking back a heavily disputed train yard and ultimately taking the town hall.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Although there is no Soviet/Russian campaign, the main enemies in the game are Russian Ultranationalists who wish to return Russia to a former glory seen during the Soviet era. One of the missions in the game involves the player as Lt. Price, sniping off Zakhaev's left arm, while he is having an arms deal in front of the Vladimir I. Lenin Nuclear Power Plant.

The SAS end up winning the six-day conflict by killing Zakhaev during the final Call of Duty 4 mission Game Over. Price slides a M1911 .45 to MacTavish, who then kills Zakhaev.

The enemy faction in multiplayer which the SAS fight against is named Spetsnaz.

Call of Duty: World at War
The Soviet campaign makes a return from CoD2, where the player is Dimitri Petrenko during the Siege of Stalingrad, where he and Reznov sniped a German general, Heinrich Amsel, the "mudak" responsible for the massacre, in the mission Vendetta, which bears a striking resemblance to the movie Enemy at The Gates.

Three years later, he and Reznov, his commanding officer, meet up again, but the conflict has now reached German territory, where it is then "Their Land, Their Blood". Dimitri then goes on to control a tank in the mission Blood and Iron, where he takes out defensive positions defending a train station vital for the 3rd Shock Army to reach Berlin. Having destroyed these positions and a communications tower, Dimitri boards a train to Berlin.

In the mission Ring of Steel, now in the outskirts of Berlin, the player fights through an asylum, which serves for the basis of the multiplayer map Asylum and the Zombie map Verruckt. The missions Eviction and Heart of The Reich come next, and the mission Downfall sees Dimitri getting seriously wounded by a surviving Wehrmacht soldier, who is then slashed twice across the torso and impaled by Reznov's machete. Dimitri then plants the Soviet Flag above the Reichstag, making the Soviets victorious in the Final Battle for Berlin. The Soviet National Anthem follows, and the mission ends, and so does the game. An emotional video follows, and after the credits are finished, Nazi Zombies will load.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
In the five years following the death of Zakhaev and the end of the Second Russian Civil War, the Russian state and populace have increasingly come to side with the goals and aims of the Ultranationalists, to the extent that Zakhaev is declared the "Hero of the New Russia" by popular acclaim. The Ultranationalists won the war, and one of their leaders, Boris Vorshevsky became the President. The new leader of the Ultranationalist terrorists, Vladimir Makarov, uses this populist surge in patriotic feeling to his own benefit by staging a brutal massacre at Zakhaev International Airport and pinning the blame on the United States in a false-flag operation, inciting a nationalist backlash against America. The Russian state takes the bait, and, after using a captured ACS module to hack American defence systems, soon launches a massive military invasion of the United States' East Coast, starting the Russian-American War, with the goal to both avenge the airport massacre and fulfill the Ultranationalist goal of forging Russia into a world power once again. The Russian invasion is swift and brutal, with no distinction between military and civilian personnel, and engulfs much of the country in the fighting, including Washington D.C. itself. Although the invaders are defeated in Washington D.C., the United States as a whole remain in jeopardy, as Russia now finds itself wholly committed to the path of war against America.

Call of Duty: Black Ops
The U.S.S.R. will be seen again in Call of Duty: Black Ops as one of the enemy factions encountered in the campaign mode. The U.S.S.R. appear in the mission WMD. Not much else is known at the time.

In Real Life
Hitler and the Nazi's had a deep-seated hatred for the Russians. War Between Germany and the USSR was probably inevitable. Nevertheless, Stalin used the early years of the war for territorial gain for himself. On August 23rd 1939, Russia and Germany signed a secret Non-Aggresion act dividing Poland. In September, The Russians invaded Eastern Poland. But Stalin could not avoid war with the Germans and on June 22nd, 1941, the Germans invaded Russia. Italy and Romania then declared war on the USSR.

In October 1941, Germany began its drive toward Moscow. The USSR was forced to evacuate its seat of government to Kuibyshev. But in December, Germany gave up its attack on Moscow, and the Soviets counterattacked. On January after, 90, 000 Nazi soldiers surrendered at the battle of Stalingrad. This was a significant turning point in the war against Germany. From then on, the Soviets reclaimed many major cities including: Odessa and Minsk. Romania surrendered and Bulgaria declared war on Germany. In 1944 the Russians entered Yugoslavia. In 1945 the Russians recaptured Warsaw and later, Vienna. On April 23rd 1945, The Soviet Union entered Berlin and as they fought endlessly with the Germans, Adolph Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, killed himself. The Soviets promptly captured Berlin and Germany surrendered unconditonally. The War in Europe was over, but war elsewhere beconned.

True to his promise to the Allies, Stalin declared war on Japan by invading Japaneese-held Manchuria and helped end the War in the Pacific.