My Personal Milena Lore
Okay, so we know pretty much ZILCH about Milena in canon. Some things can be inferred (like there clearly being SOME KIND of positive relationship between her and Makarov) and we do know some things in a vague fashion (her husband was murdered), but we know very little that's CONCRETE.
So, under the read-more, please enjoy my ramblings about my special interest favourite character. None of this is canon, remember! Just conjecture.
Okay, so the first thing I have to mention is really to do with Makarov, and that's the fact that there is NO WAY that man was 43 in MWIII. No. Julian does not look a whole year older than my mother, and therefore neither does Vladimir.
So it's my belief that Makarov was born Vladimir Dmitriyevich Makarov on October 4th, 1989. Almost a month before, Milena was born Milena Viktorovna Volkova on September 10th, 1989. This makes both of them 34 at the time wherein MWIII takes place.
She was born to very rich parents - Diana Yuriyevna Volkova and Viktor Mikhailevich Volkov - and grew up in Moscow, just like Makarov.
Upon finishing school with very good grades, Milena decided to attend university. This is where she met one Boris Aleksievich Romanov through mutual friends at a party. The man was rich, with a lot of connections, and the two soon began to date.
Within two years - on October 12th, 2009 - Milena and Boris married and Milena became Milena Viktorovna Romanova. Milena was 20 years old at this time.
Four years later, on Februrary 28th, 2013, Makarov and Milena meet when she comes along with Boris to a meeting.
Boris proves to be decent-ish at first, but becomes a very neglectful husband after Milena turns 25, causing Milena to quickly become incredibly bitter. He spends a lot of his time away from home, leaving his wife to attend to his actual business - which she quickly acclimates to and becomes much better than him at. Whilst her husband is gambling and cheating (which Milena can verify as he uses the same funds he's supposed to give to Makarov and his cause), Milena begins forming a plan to get rid of her shitty, boring husband. In the years between Milena and Makarov's first introduction and when she begins to plan, the two had become good friends. This is where Milena realises that having her husband killed rather than divorcing him will have many benefits - and not just for her.
During one of Boris's 'business trips' (read: gambling sprees), Milena meets with Makarov and exposes all of Boris's recent embezzlement. This both discredits her husband and makes Milena look damn good. Irreplacable, even. Makarov agrees to help her kill Boris, on the condition that Milena formally replaces her husband as a financier to the ultranationalists. Let it never be said that this woman doesn't know how to twist things in her favour.
On June 10th, 2017, during a supposed 'business dinner' between Milena, Boris, and Makarov on Plutus Island, Boris is murdered. Makarov deals with the legal side of things. Work with me here, I don't know how it'd work but it just would.
Milena decides to keep her current name, feeling that she's outgrown the name Milena Volkova at this point. She keeps her wedding ring (which can be seen in the Oligarch mission) as a 'fuck you' to the man who wasted eight years of her life.
Milena is thriving at this point. The personal and business relationship between her and Makarov grows ever more positive.
On April 6th, 2019, Vladimir Makarov is arrested during his terrorist attack on Verdansk. He's sent to Zordaya - this is canon.
During this time, Milena is able to, in Makarov's words 'build an army' - this is, of course, the PMC Konni Group. She works with Ivan Alexxeve and Andrei Nolan for the most part.
She brokers a deal between Las Almas Cartel and Konni Group to get hold of chemical weapons, as seen in (I believe) MWII. This is one of many things that I, sleep-deprived as I am, cannot remember the extent of, but I know are canon.
On November 10th, 2023, Vladimir Makarov is busted out of prison and returns to lead Konni Group.
On the evening of November 12th, 2023, Milena Romanova's island is raided by Task Force 141 in order to gain information on both Makarov's/Konni Group's finances and Makarov's whereabouts. With her security shot dead and her house shot up, Milena gives up Makarov's location.
(Side note: say what you will, but I think this was entirely reasonable of her. Milena's biggest motivation is her money, and she was scared as shit of losing it. But that's not all. As a fellow woman, I cannot begin to imagine the visceral terror I would feel if I were in her situation - alone on an island with nobody to immediately call for help, with two absolutely massive army men who don't exactly wish her well. We, the players, know that Ghost and Soap are protagonists and morally decent enough, but Milena does not. Anything could've happened, and I imagine that scared the shit out of her.)
Now, this is where we reach pure speculation.
We can infer that Makarov and Milena have a positive relationship - in the Praise and Punishment cutscene, Milena is the only one to call him by his given name. Critically, it can be noted that she's the only one in the whole game to be received well by Makarov when she does this. Makarov seems a very tactile man from what we see in this cutscene - most likely as a way to build loyalty - but there is a clear note of mutual respect in this cutscene between the two. She's clearly quite important - she stands pretty much by his side for the remainder of the cutscene.
All of that is to say this: Makarov seems to have dealt with Milena's betrayal in a manner uncommon to him. We see what happens when someone displeases Makarov - he shot Ivan in front of his soldiers to make an example. However, when Makarov speaks to Andrei after torturing one of Shadow Company's men, he mentions that (paraphrasing here) 'if [TF141] can get to Milena, they can get to any of us'.
He's giving her an awful lot of grace. Not cursing her. Not insisting she's hunted down or executed. He's making excuses.
Additionally, the mission after Oligarch (called Highrise) takes place 16 hours after. The cutscene for it takes place some point the night before Highrise begins. This means that Makarov found out about what happened (most likely from Milena herself calling) between 1 and 10 hours after. Remember - Milena was the only one allied with Konni who survived Oligarch. Only she would've known.
I believe that Milena is undoubtably still alive, and if (wishful thinking) we see her in MWIV, she and Makarov may still be allied.
I also believe, very strongly, that there is something between Vladimir Makarov and Milena Romanova. It may be romantic, it may be platonic, but he clearly gives a shit about her in a situation where it'd make a lot more sense for him to write her off as a traitor.
And I find that utterly fascinating.
