Barkov Roman Dimitrovich

Russian army general.

personality Outright delusional, sadistic and utterly ruthless, General Barkov is an over-patriotic fanatic who will do anything to achieve his goals. He will have whomever he sees on the wrong end or getting in his way killed without any hesitation or remorse. Viewing Urzikstan as the "breeding ground for terrorists", Barkov is extremely xenophobic and abusive towards its population, which is demonstrated not only by his tyrannical occupation through public executions and forced laboring, but is also demonstrated by his merciless repressions and genocidal actions towards them, and he doesn't spare even children. Other than having innocent Urzikstanis killed, Barkov is also not above having his own soldiers killed, for even the slightest of reasons, as evident by some dialogues in the game. However, Barkov is not lacking any other emotions, such as showing fear in the end when being stabbed by Farah Karim, even trying to bargain for his life, and would flee battles in order to save his own life all the time. All in all, Barkov is a cowardly hypocrite, who cannot see the fault in his own actions, and is more than willing to use any excuse to murder and torture innocent people via his war crimes. backstory Roman Dimitriovich Barkov was born on October 21, 1961, in the outskirts of Sochi, Russian SFSR along the coast of the Black Sea. As a teenager, he took care of his elderly mother, cooking and shopping for her. Possessing several reading disabilities, Barkov tried to go to trade school but failed to complete it. This resulted in an inferiority complex, becoming dependent on excitement and power. He eventually joined the Soviet Army illegally at the age of 16 as a cook, due to it being the only marketable skill he had. He enjoyed destroying targets, logging more range hours than any other soldier in his unit; this was the first time in his life that he felt strong. Barkov continued in his career, joining the Russian Army during the transition from the Soviet Union. In the year 1999, as a Lieutenant, he was sent to Syria to assist the Ba'athist government in suppressing Islamist dissent. Barkov controversially deployed chlorine gas and various nerve agents widely during his time in Syria, killing hundreds of people: terrorist or otherwise. Barkov captured Farah and Hadir Karim in Riyzabbi: two children who had previously killed three of his best men. Though impressed, he held the siblings as prisoners for the next ten years in the prison in Tobrak. By 2009, Barkov had been promoted to General and came to wield much power in his own right in Syria, despite nominally being a mere military advisor. He knew that the West could not interfere and cause an international incident, which enabled him to freely commit atrocities on the Syrian people. Barkov called himself Novoyy Korol - "New King" in Russian - which fueled his narcissism. Barkov deluded himself to believe that he was bringing peace and order to an unstable region, despite the fact that Barkov forced citizens in his jurisdiction to work as slave labor and had them listen to his propaganda about maintaining order. He ordered scientists in his unit to develop a more powerful chemical agent that penetrated protective gear, was 10x as lethal as the original agent, and was undetectable; this was to scare any resistance into submission. During this time, the Syrian Opposition commander known as Karim had become a thorn in his side, and sought to eliminate them. Barkov, suspicious of the siblings, had Hadir moved to the prison warehouse and then proceeded to waterboard Farah in an attempt to find out if she was Karim. Farah remained defiant as she was tortured, refusing to reveal her identity as Karim. This resulted in a fellow prisoner, Azadeh al-Rasheed, being executed in front of her eyes. Later, Barkov revealed to Farah that he knew she was Karim all along, rendering Azadeh's death to be in vain. Barkov began lecturing Farah, and then attempted to strangle Farah. He was interrupted by an attack on the base by the forces that Karim summoned, and proceeded to flee the base by helicopter. In 2019, Barkov unofficially separated his forces from the Russian Army, rendering in him being officially considered a rogue agent by Moscow. Unfortunately for the West, this still did not mean that he was no longer a Russian general, and thus was off limits for assassination in an attempt to prevent war with Russia. On 24 October 2019, one of his warehouses in the outskirts of Donetsk, Ukraine was raided by a joint Marine Raider-CIA task force for the purposes of damaging his supply line of chlorine gas. The operation was a failure, with most of the team, save for the operative known as "Alex", killed by Barkov's men or by a small al-Qatala force sent to capture the gas. Later on, Alex assisted Farah Karim in Syria to provide a distraction in an assault on an air base in the city of Aqtabi, which were both a success for the FSA. Towards the end of the month, Barkov assaulted the FSA as they awaited the Wolf on the outskirts of Darus, and Hadir was forced to release the gas to save his men, killing the remainder of Barkov's men tasked for this assault.