Russia

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or Russia, commonly referred to as the Soviet Union or abbreviated as USSR, was one of the major powers existing before the Great War.

Pre-Divergence
The Soviet Union was the end result of the 1917 October Revolution, formally founded in 1922 as a federal union of Soviet republics. Nominally a federation, it was highly centralized in practice, dominated by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, so much that the Soviet Union was frequently referred to as Soviet Russia or just Russia.

The Soviet Union rapidly evolved from a backwater to a major power, shedding the legacy of the tsarist empire through rapid industrialization and modernization. It turned into a brutal dictatorship under the autocratic rule of Joseph Stalin, participating in World War II first supporting Nazi Germany and then waging war against them. Though it lost millions, the Soviet Union was the ultimate victor of the European theater and an indispensable member of the Allied nations, in the victory over the Axis powers.

Post-Divergence
However, despite military camaraderie and close cooperation as part of the Lend-Lease program, the ideological differences drove a rift between the allies soon after the war ended. Economic, military, and technological competition followed, leading to many disputes between the Soviet Union and the United States. One of the most prominent is the controversy over the first human in space: Despite Sino-Soviet protests and refutations, the United States consistently credited Captain Carl Bell as the first human in space, who successfully completed an orbital flight on May 5, 1961, on board Defiance 7, before dying in the capsule's crash landing.

By the 21st century, China supplanted the Union's position as a superpower, eclipsing its older communist sibling. However, the two communist powers were considered natural allies by the United States and thus a threat: After the outbreak of the Sino-American War, the possibility of a joint nuclear first strike by the USSR and China under orders from Chairman Cheng was considered as a viable option by defense analysts. Russian human mutation experiments also "inspired" similar efforts in America.

By 2077, however, relations improved. As a nominally communist state, the Soviet Union was still considered a potential enemy among the U.S. military, and corporate propaganda vilified the USSR as a land of forced labor camps and source of spies trying to obtain national secrets. Communist propaganda was also commonly broadcast to the United States. However, relations were close enough that a Soviet diplomat from the Los Angeles consulate was accepted as a dweller of Vault 13, in the midst of the Sino-American War, and thus survived the war that extinguished most of human civilization, including the Soviet Union.

Soviet citizens were also present in American organized crime. Boston crime boss Eddie Winter employed Russian hitman Aleksandr Strelnikov, and Lev immigrated to the United States prior to the war to prey upon the American public.

Units

 * The Spetnaz, a Russian special forces unit, is mentioned in the description for the Scorpio submachine gun found in Fallout Tactics.

Equipment

 * AK-112 assault rifle
 * AK47
 * Scorpio

Known locations

 * Chukchi Sea, Chukotka, and  Gulf of Anadyr (seen on a map in a Capitol Post article about the liberation of Anchorage)
 * Russia
 * The Kremlin
 * Red Square
 * Trans-Siberian Railway

Appearances
The Soviet Union is mentioned in Fallout, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, Fallout 76 and its updates Wild Appalachia and Wastelanders, and Fallout Tactics.

Behind the scenes

 * In the Origins of Fallout, R. Scott Campbell noted that, "The nuclear Armageddon in the back-story was between the US and China. After shipping several people asked me why China and not the old standby, the Soviet Union. I made the choice when I remembered experiences with Oleg, a Moscow developer I worked with months before when I was assistant-producing a typing game. Once, in the middle of a phone conversation, I heard some muffled bangs, and the phone went quiet. When I asked him what the noise was, he replied, 'Oh, it was just the Russian mob firing their guns in the street.' I thought he was joking – he wasn't. After that, I had a really hard time believing that the once mighty USSR would be in a position to threaten the world any time soon. So I turned to the next major communist country that typifies 'the East': China."
 * In the Fallout 3 add-on Operation: Anchorage, General Jingwei's shocksword has a symbol heavily resembling the Soviet hammer and sickle.
 * In Fallout 76, the Camp McClintock Patriotism Training building has a sign with the Soviet hammer and sickle being stabbed. A poster depicts a similar situation, with a voting booth replacing the knife.
 * In Wild Appalachia, a top-secret Soviet spy ring was planned for inclusion. The player character would find a Soviet Mr. Handy and complete Mission: Accessible, a training program that would prepare them for secret operations for "Mother Russia."
 * The Fort Hagen Command Center map and globes found across Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 depict modern, post-1991 country borders, suggesting that the USSR's western republics/satellite states broke away, declaring independence. However, the reliability of these assets is unknown, as they are half-finished, with major bodies of water erroneously filled in.
 * In the real world, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space on April 12, 1961, and the Vostok 1 flight was completed with his safe return to Earth.
 * The country's remains were meant to appear in 14° East's canceled Fallout Extreme, as the Cause made their way into China. The region would have been inhabited by Russian Cossacks. Locations in the game would have included abandoned oil refineries, Russian steppes villages, and a re-education colony.