Russia is the largest country by landmass in the world and covers 17,075,400 square kilometers (6,592,800 sq mi). By the 20th century, Russia was still ruled by an autocratic government after the Russian Revolution was crushed by forces led by Tsar Michael. It is where the Chimera are believed to have originated from when a meteor exploded above the Tunguska region in Siberia.
By the turn of the 20th century, an unknown celestial object crash landed in Russia's Tunguska region. It is believed that the object was responsible for bringing the Chimera to Earth. Although the impact was widely noticed by the world, there has not been any serious attempts to study the crash site. By 1914, Russia entered the Great War on the side of the Allies. Despite possessing the largest military force in the world at the time, Russia faced difficult challenges against the Central Powers. Instant mismanagement of resources and manpower caused Russian citizens to revolt and abdicate Tsar Nicholas II. Before being exiled to Siberia, the Tsar appointed his brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, to become the new Tsar of Russia. Under Tsar Michael, several uprisings were quelled within the country, and the populist Bolshevik party was shut down and its prominent leader Vladimir Lenin was sent to a gulag in western Siberia.
In 1918, Russia was summarily defeated by Germany. Determined to preserve his legacy, Tsar Michael signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and relinquished all claims to several territories to Eastern Europe. As a result of Russia losing its territory and breaking up its empire, a civil war erupted. The Russian government quelled the uprising, but only to sow further unrest in the next several years.
After the end of the Great War, the Russian government did not enter membership to the European Trade Organization. By 1921, several civil wars erupted across Russia in reaction to the oppressive rule of Tsar Michael. In response Russian shock troopers were dispatch to lay down the uprisings. Soon after, twelve French spies were discovered in Russia for allegedly encouraging the insurrections and were captured and executed without trial. This discovery exacerbated Russia's relationship with Western Europe, in which the Russian government became weary of outside influence on the Russian people.
By September 1921, Russia began to cut off all communications to the outside world and pursued a period of isolationism. As a result, the massively long, fortified barrier known as the Red Curtain was constructed on the Russian-European border. Given Europe's prosperity by the ETO economic bloc and the United European Defense military bloc only further antagonized the Russians.
In 1926, reports of unusual activity in Siberia sparked the concern and curiosity of the Russian government. An investigation team was dispatched to Siberia, where they first witnessed the existence of the Chimera during their attack on several villages. In awe of the advanced technology of the Chimera, the Russian government saw the potential in obtaining the Chimeran technology for their selfish hopes of dominating scientific progress over the West and the Russian population. By 1927, the Russian military was mobilized against the Chimera, leaving a majority of the country undefended. Despite the small forces the Chimera have, they were able to overcome Russian military forces and easily infecting and converting thousands of human soldiers to the Chimeran virus.
Desperately to turn the tide of the war, the Russian government sought in finding a cure. In this endeavor, Russian scientist Dr. Fyodor Malikov led promising results in creating an experimental vaccine that indicated to resist the Chimeran virus. The government ordered a mandatory vaccination of all surviving soldiers, despite the unknown long-term effects. In a very short time, the soldiers had received the injections. Initially, the vaccine was proved to be a success as the soldiers were immune from turning into Chimera by the Chimeran "Crawler" strain and also showing incredible skills in fighting the Chimera. However, some soldiers began exhibiting signs of extremely violent behavior and began abandoning their posts. Within a few months, the soldiers began to mutate, taking on some of the physical characteristics of the Chimera and attacking their fellow soldiers. These changed soldiers banded together, leaving bloody handprints on their victims and referring to themselves as the Cloven. Seemingly possessing their motives, the Cloven were hostile to both Chimera and human alike. By September 1930, the vaccinated soldiers went AWOL and banded in small groups to terrorize the countryside. Caught between the Cloven and the Chimera, the Russian military was devastated.
From the 1930s to the 1940s, Russia was entirely conquered by the Chimera after European intelligence agencies discovered large numbers of ghost towns, abandoned cities and other strange phenomenons reported coming from the country. The only trace of life coming from inside Russia was a looping radio transmission, broadcasting propaganda to 12,000 radio stations with the words: "Brotherhood, strength, and fortitude...in the face of the angry night." By December 1949, enforced from millions of converted humans, the Chimera broke through the Red Curtain and quickly overrun Europe.
Following the events of Operation Overstrike in mid-1951, Allied forces have been fighting closer to the remnants of the Red Curtain, and by 1953 they are preparing to enter into Russia.
The Russian leadership is under a Tsarist autocracy ruled by Tsar Michael after the Russian Revolution in 1917 was crushed. In response to "anti-imperialist" influences following the aftermath of the Great War, Russia established a strong and stringent isolationist policy that completely shunned out the outside world. Because of this, the world remained ignorant of the Chimera that first warred Russia in 1927.
By the early 1950s, it is safe to assume that Russia's current government collapsed to the Chimera although factions of the military continue to wage a guerrilla style war from hidden military outposts in the countryside.
- The history of Russia during and shortly after the Russian Revolution is almost similar to the events describe in the alternate history book series Timeline-191 by Harry Turtledove, in which the series' Russia have its revolution and the civil war won by the monarchist government led by Grand Duke Michael.
- On the official website of Resistance: Fall of Man, on Day Three when it is mentioning Russia, a communist flag can be seen. This was probably a mistake since Russia was never a communist country in the Resistance universe.