Nadia Zelenkov

"That woman, Stalin's... paramour, correct? I'd think on a better word to describe her."

- General Gunter von Esling and Major Vladimir Kosygin

Nadia Zelenkov (Russian: Надежда Зеленкова) is the Director of the Soviet NKVD in Red Alert 1 and aide to Stalin.

Background
A ruthless and calculating woman, Nadia rose through the ranks of the Soviet Union to become Stalin's personal aide and lover. She is in charge of the NKVD and is an efficient killer, preferring a tea of her own making as her killing tool.

Her membership in the Brotherhood of Nod could have contributed to her career, as she answers directly to Kane.

Character development
Nadia is briefly mentioned in the Allied campaign, while Allied leadership watches Stalin's speech to the masses of his pre-nuclear strike, but plays a major role in the Soviet campaign.

She repeatedly challenges Gradenko's competence and eventually removes him by poisoned tea, and clashes with Kukov several times, before saving one of the best Soviet commanders from the firing squad, revealing that it was Georgi Kukov who failed to monitor a second Allied base that oversaw the Chronosphere prototype. Stalin subsequently kills Kukov.

At the end of the war, Nadia poisons Stalin, then shoots his dead body repeatedly. While gloating over Stalin's corpse and exposing the existence of the Brotherhood of Nod to the commander, Kane shoots her from behind.

Trivia

 * Russian name "Nadia" is actually a diminutive form of "Nadezhda", while it is used as the full form of the name in Ukraine.