Vasily Karpov was a minor character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in the film Captain America: Civil War. He was a former soldier of the Soviet Union and an operative of the terrorist organization HYDRA. He was portrayed by Gene Farber.
History[]
During his time in HYDRA, Karpov was involved with the Winter Soldier Program, a project to recreate the Super-Soldier formula developed by Dr. Abraham Erskine. HYDRA already had one successful subject in the form of James Buchanan Barnes, an American soldier that HYDRA had captured during World War II who had previously been experimented on by Arnim Zola. However, Karpov's cell had difficulty with recreating the original Winter Soldier as they had never been able to remake the Super-Soldier serum.
In 1991, HYDRA discovered that Howard Stark had successfully remade the Super-Soldier formula. On December 16th of that year, Karpov sent Barnes to assassinate Stark and steal the formula. The Winter Soldier carried out his mission and Karpov used the stolen formula to create several new Enhanced individuals, forcing them to fight Barnes as part of their training. If they were able to best Barnes, they would be considered successful candidates. However, during a training exercise, the other Winter Soldiers went berserk and attacked their HYDRA handlers. Karpov and his soldiers were barely able to subdue the super-assassins and had them placed in cryogenic stasis, where they would remain for over two decades. Following that debacle, Karpov fled HYDRA and emigrated to the United States.
Death[]
In 2016, Karpov was discovered by a man known as Helmut Zemo. In his personal quest to destroy the Avengers, whom he held responsible for the loss of his family in Sokovia, Zemo had used his own military tactical knowledge to determine where Karpov had been hiding. After arriving at Karpov's home, Zemo knocked the ex-HYDRA agent unconscious, tying him upside down above a sink which began to fill with water. Zemo demanded that Karpov give him the details behind the Winter Soldier's mission in 1991. Karpov asked how Zemo came to know of any of this, to which Zemo explained that Natasha Romanoff had leaked all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s and HYDRA's files to the public after the Battle of the Triskelion. When pressed further regarding the Stark assassination, Karpov refused to talk, only telling Zemo to "Go to hell!" Zemo then took the former Soviet colonel's notebook containing the Winter Soldier's trigger words and left him to die. Karpov uttered "Hail HYDRA" for the last time just before the sink began to overflow. With his nose submerged, Karpov drowned.