ABOUT:
name: ilya ivanovich kutuzov
age: 50
gender: cis male
pronouns: he/him
agency: KGB
codename: sadko
fc: mads mikkelsen
PERSONALITY:
+ intelligent, charming, dedicated
- manipulative, dishonest, amoral
HEADCANONS:
content warning: implied torture
There are a lot of things one should know about Ilya, but the first and most important thing one should know about him is that he’s a social chameleon. Put him in any situation even without any context and he’ll eventually have the whole room eating out of his hand in no time. With impeccable charm and sophisticated wit, Ilya can get just about anyone talking and talking and talking. A story for a story, he would often say, trading his for his partner’s. The thing about storytelling, though, is that it’s just another form of lying, a form of self-aggrandising mythology, and he would end the day having gleaned useful truths from the stories he hears and all the while never giving anything up from himself.
He’ll tell you freely about his so-called past, but there’s no room for trust in the profession he finds himself in and so one can never really be sure if the recollections he so willingly offers is rooted in actual reality or not. He might tell you about his émigré parents, his family only returning after the Revolution to settle back to the homeland, or he might tell you about Denmark and its beautiful ports, the call of the sea; but none of these will be true, because the truth is this: He was born in a poor little village in Southern Russia, his family of little note, his birthplace not even a dot in most maps. He would have been consigned to irrelevance had his father not been a war hero during World War II, a military decoration that would change the fate of their family forevermore.
With the money from his father’s pension, his family eventually saved up enough to move to Moscow, where he excelled academically in his studies and gained entry to Moscow State University, choosing to study philology. He showed a mastery of languages that made him stand out to his professors, with Ilya showing great skills to adapt and improvise. This aptitude eventually gained him entry to the KGB, who made great use of his linguistic skills by using him as an illegal resident spy, cycling through different personas and slipping into each one with an ease that could almost be called unnerving. Ilya proved himself to be efficient and more than capable, unfathomable charm hiding the lengths he’ll go to in service of his country. In times he can’t get what he wants through the usual methods, he isn’t one to shy away from enhanced interrogation techniques.
It’s with a forced smile through gritted teeth that Ilya welcomes the present situation with the CIA, past experiences colouring his viewpoint and making him biased against the KGB’s current bed partner; but he is committed in his loyalty to servicing the fatherland, so he grins and bears it to the best that he is able, much as he might wish to wash his hands clean of having to work with bourgeoise capitalists.