Nikita Dragovich Novikov (10 August 1914 - 26 February 1968) was a Major-General of the Soviet Army during the Cold War. Dragovich was a high-ranking Soviet general who was the leader of Project Nova, a classified effort by the Soviet government to release Nova 6 poison gas into every American state capital with the help of communist sleeper cells. Dragovich's plans were foiled when the US Navy launched an assault on his numbers station on the ship Rusalka in the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed his underwater numbers station.
Biography[]
Rise to prominence[]
Early life and career[]
Nikita Dragovich Novikov was born in Tsaritsyn, Astrakhan Governorate, Russian Empire (now Volgograd, Russia) on 10 August 1914. Unlike most Russians, Nikita used his middle name as his surname. Dragovich served in the Red Army during World War II at the rank of General, commanding the 3rd Shock Army at the bloody Battle of Stalingrad in 1942, using it to gain a position of power; he was responsible for the massacre of Sergeant Viktor Reznov's unit at the square, earning Reznov's ire.
Operation Olympus[]
After the European theater's conclusion, Dragovich was appointed to interrogate German POWs; from one of them, he learned of a ship that was transporting a chemical bioweapon towards the United States, but was trapped in the ice in the Arctic Circle. On 2 October 1945, he was given command of Operation Olympus, in which the Soviets stormed a German stronghold that formed around the marred ship. During the operation, Dragovich's men captured Nazi scientist Friedrich Steiner, who was recruited by the Soviets. Dragovich then tested the chemical weapon known as Nebula V on Sergeant Dimitri Petrenko, a close friend of Reznov, both to verify the chemical's usefulness and to psychologically torture Reznov.
Before Reznov could be killed as well, British Commandos that were sent to capture the weapons ambushed Dragovich and his men, enabling Reznov to be freed. After Reznov planted bombs on the gas reserves and a support beam, the ship sank beneath the ice. Having escaped the disaster, Dragovich captured Reznov and sent him to Vorkuta to die.
Despite the loss of Nebula V, Steiner and British defector and chemical engineer Daniel Clarke developed a newer, improved variant of Nebula V dubbed Nova 6 over the next decade. In 1959, Dragovich received Communist Party of the Soviet Union approval for the use of Nova 6 in first strike capacity in the event of a war with the United States, and he climbed through the ranks of the Soviet Army to become a Major-General.
Project Nova[]
Initial stages[]
In 1961, Dragovich secured an alliance with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and was allowed to establish a numbers station at an underground submarine supply post in the Gulf of Mexico, a part of "Project Nova". Dragovich planned to use this station to broadcast messages to communist sleeper agents in the USA so that they could activate Nova 6 canisters in every US state capital, which would cripple the USA's defensive abilities in the case of war. He also obtained captured CIA agent Alex Mason as Castro's gift to him, who was placed within the Vorkuta gulag. With the assistance of Steiner, Dragovich reprogrammed Mason into a sleeper agent, for the purposes of assassinating sitting US president John F. Kennedy.
Failed assassination[]
However, Viktor Reznov, a prisoner at Vorkuta, managed to infiltrate Mason's programming, instead targeting Dragovich, Kravchenko, and Steiner. Two years after Mason escaped Vorkuta, Dragovich survived a CIA assassination attempt at Baikonur in 1963, and he would set up sleeper cells around America in the following years; his cells were believed to have succeeded in assassinating Kennedy in November 1963.
Second encounter with Mason[]
By 1968, his operation was ready to go, as the Soviets had successfully tested chemical weapons at Rebirth Island and against locals in Laos. In February 1968, Dragovich briefly recaptured Mason and his team in Vietnam, handing them over to the local Viet Cong in Laos. Mason later broke out and killed Steiner at Rebirth Island, before he was tortured by the CIA into revealing the origin of the numbers Dragovich was broadcasting. Mason eventually figured it out, informing the CIA of the Rusalka, a ship Dragovich was using as a station.
Death[]
The CIA and the US Navy quickly located his numbers station on the Rusalka and launched an assault on the ship and the underwater numbers station underneath it. Mason confronted Dragovich and ridiculed him for attempting to brainwash him, proceeding to choke and drown him as the station was flooding with seawater.