OOOOHHHH Nikto... Here is a complicated little bacterium of a man to me... So, I do adore him, I want that to be perfectly clear, specifically, @cerosin-bis (I hope you don't mind the at!) version of Nikto is canon to me, full stop. I'll also admit, I am terribly unfamiliar with Russia and the Russian Army in general so that would certainly be an issue...
Another issue is, to me, Nikto's backstory does not necessarily matter to him as a character? I love him so much because he embodies one of my favorite tropes, if not the favorite, in fiction of 'came back wrong.' Nikto didn't die per se, but who he used to be did. Whoever Nikto was, with a name, with a mother and father, with friends, with likes and dislikes, was taken apart molecule by molecule and reassembled into something completely new. Not even a somebody anymore, literally a Nikto, a 'nobody.' I don't know if I could do a character like that justice, because his backstory has no bearing on his current story (unlike other characters in the same trope like Orianna Reveck from League of Legends who is an effigy of grief and spends her 'life' trying to fit back into society, or Brook from One Piece who's life goal is to fulfill dreams of long dead comrades while remembering his own agency and happiness.)
This is an interesting concept, one I had not thought to explore, but I may now that you've pointed it out to me, Anon! And yes, he does need a kiss, but good luck trying to give him one...