Galina Voronina

Galina Voronina (born 1983) is a Master Assassin of the Russian Brotherhood of Assassins. She is also one of the daughters of an Assassin scientist who succeeded in constructing her own Animus inside an old Assassin laboratory, located in Protvino, Moscow.

After gaining the assistance of Gavin Banks and his allies in 2014, Galina assassinated her mother, sister, and former Assassin comrades, who had been driven insane through the Bleeding Effect. In doing so, she became the last of the Russian Assassins, leading her to later accept Gavin's offer to become part of the Altaïr II's crew.

Early life
"'What happened to us? What happened to our future? What kind of world am I leaving to my twin girls?'"―Galina's mother on the deteriorating Russian Brotherhood, 1991.

Galina and her twin sister were born to an Assassin scientist who worked in one of the Assassin Science Cities, facilities that belonged to the Russian Academy of Sciences, but were used by the Assassins for research since the early 20th century. The twins grew up in one such compound, located in Protvino, Moscow, which served as their home and hideout. By 1991, it was the only Assassin Science City left, with the others having been eradicated by the nation's increasingly powerful Templars.

Raised as Assassins, Galina and her sister bore witness to the Russian Brotherhood's further decline, which their mother desperately tried to reverse by using the Animus she had built. The experiments, however, proved to be a disaster; the subjects were driven insane and subsequently sealed off in another section of the compound. Not wanting to create even more victims, the twins' mother chose to be the machine's sole test subject, causing her sanity to be slowly frayed away by the Bleeding Effect.

In December 2012, a sudden power surge caused the twins' mother to experience a vision of Eve, which she took as a sign to redouble her efforts. While the Assassin scientist forced the remaining members of her cell into the Animus, Galina was told of an old Assassin meeting place, the footbridge that connected the old and new properties of the Moscow Zoo. On the instruction of her twin sister, who had learned of the location from their grandmother's journal, Galina began to visit the bridge every full moon, in the hopes that she could contact other Assassins.

On 28 June 2013, the Russian government announced its plans to put all of the Russian Academy of Sciences' remaining property and facilities under its control, putting the remaining Russian Assassins in danger. Both Galina and her twin sister, the last two sane individuals in the facility, were subsequently forced into the Animus. However, unlike the others, Galina was able to remain mentally stable and used the Bleeding Effect to learn the techniques of her ancestors.

Clearing the science city
"'We have established contact with an Assassin in Moscow, Galina Voronina [...] She wants us to assassinate her mother, an Assassin scientist who went nuts.'"―An excerpt from Emmett's report, 2014.[src]

Escaping from the laboratory, Galina continued visiting the footbridge and eventually made contact with Gavin Banks, Emmett Leary and Emmanuel Barraza, Assassins from the Altaïr II, on 16 March 2014 in Moscow. She informed them of the Russian Brotherhood's situation, before asking them to assassinate her mother. Reconvening with the trio of Assassins two days later to discuss plans, she managed to convince Gavin into aiding her. During their meeting, Emmett attempted to explain to her that her mother could not have been speaking to Eve, as experiences in the Animus were purely passive, though Galina did not seem convinced.

Accompanied by her new allies, Galina journeyed back to Protvino, which was crawling with deranged Assassins, and broke into the laboratory. Although she had requested the back-up of Gavin and his team, Galina hardly needed help, using her two Hidden Blades to put their attackers, among them her twin sister, out of their misery.

Eventually, they found Galina's babbling mother strapped to the ancient Animus she had constructed, in a room filled with monitors. As Galina knelt down next to her mother, Emmett watched the screens, believing to see a face in them. When Galina ended her mother's life, the face cried out, before vanishing.

Following the assassination of her mother, Galina was convinced by Gavin to join him aboard the Altaïr II, as her Brotherhood had become practically non-existent. Traveling with him to St. Petersburg, she met the rest of the ship's crew on the 26th of March.

Back into the Brotherhood
On 24 April, Galina, along with the rest of the Altaïr II's crew, was tasked with deciphering the riddles in William Miles' codex, in an effort to determine William's whereabouts. Eventually, they located a hidden cove in Norway, where the Altaïr II docked on 1 May 2014.

When Rebecca Crane began upgrading the systems on the Altaïr II, she discovered that a spy on the ship was uploading reports to a database run by a group called the Initiates. Unlike the rest of the crew, Galina was above suspicion, since she had only been with them for roughly a month; too short a time to have planted the bugs used by the Initiates. While the others were confined to their quarters on the ship until they could be interrogated and cleared of suspicion, Galina stayed in the bunker.

On 23 May, William finally gathered the crew members to announce the identity of the spy, naming Stephanie Chiu as the culprit. On William's command, Galina moved to kill Stephanie, but Eric Cooper intervened, revealing he was the spy instead. The two eventually confessed they worked together, with Eric writing the reports while Stephanie uploaded them to the Initiates database. William then revealed he had no intention of having them killed, as the Initiates appeared "fairly reasonable". Shaun then sent a video to the Initiates, offering them to join the Assassins.

In October, an Assassin group led by Gavin Banks, Galina among them, attacked and destroyed the Abstergo facility in Paris, which was dedicated to the research and study of the Sage John Standish.[4] She and Shaun Hastings personally confronted Álvaro Gramática, with Galina attempting to kill the scientist with a grenade; however, Gramática survived thanks to the Shroud of Eden that he was wearing.

After the attack, the Assassins were followed by Templar agent Juhani Otso Berg and his right hand, Sorkin. Galina faced Sorkin and overpowered him, stabbing Sorkin multiple times before the Assassins escaped with the ships that were waiting them.

Finding the ShroudEdit"'Bishop tells me Otso Berg is here. I will kill him for you!'"―Galina to Shaun Hastings, 2015.[src]

In late October 2015, Galina was contacted by Bishop, who asked her to meet up with Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane in London and help them locate a Shroud of Eden. Arriving at night, she snuck up on Shaun, who had been reminiscing about an old friend, and made him jump. When Shaun recalled their mission in Paris, Galina teased him for "screaming like a baby". She then eagerly told him she would kill Berg.

Once the Shroud's location was found by an Assassin initiate, Galina, Shaun and Rebecca traveled to Buckingham Palace's vault and immediately engaged Berg, Violet da Costa and Isabelle Ardant, who had arrived there ahead of the Assassins. For a while, Galina and Berg were evenly matched, with Berg managing to break her Hidden Blades, though she eventually gained the upper hand and knocked him unconscious.

Just as she was about to kill Berg by delivering a deadly blow to his head, the rest of Sigma Team arrived, forcing her to abandon her target and take out the reinforcements, leaving Berg alive in the process. Once they had been dealt with, she returned to Shaun and Rebecca, with the latter having been shot during the struggle, and told them it was time to go.

Recruiting de la Cruz
"'We kill him. A traitor almost ended the Brotherhood... and now you want to open the door for another one to finish the job?'"―Galina voicing her doubts about Joseph to Xavier, 2015.

By late 2015, Galina was assigned to a new Assassin cell in California, which was led by Xavier Chen. In September, a respected Assassin called Joseph Laurier, who had been thought dead, resurfaced and appeared to be joining the Templars. However, he had simultaneously sent Xavier's cell a message, claiming he was actually trying to lure out one of the Templars' top agents by promising to help them find a Piece of Eden purportedly located in Salem at the time of the witch trials.

The group felt conflicted over whether or not to trust him; Xavier was inclined to believe Joseph, but Galina thought it better to kill him, wanting to avoid a repeat of the Daniel Cross debacle. To verify whether or not his story about the artifact was a set-up, the Assassins decided to search for an individual with the necessary genetic memories. Kody, the cell's technician, hacked Abstergo Industries' Helix databases and found Charlotte de la Cruz, an employee at Malta Banking Corporation in San Diego.

Galina leaping out of Charlotte's apartment

Galina and Xavier then went to San Diego to recruit Charlotte, who was enthusiastic about the prospect of aiding the Brotherhood. Their meeting was interrupted, however, when a group of men sent by the Templars arrived at Charlotte's apartment and attacked them. The two Assassins managed to eliminate them, following which they took Charlotte to their hideout located near the Salton Sea, where they put her in an Animus in order to relive the memories of her ancestor, Tom Stoddard, an Assassin active during the witch trials.

However, Stoddard's ruthless nature clashed repeatedly with Charlotte's moral compass, causing the young woman to struggle with staying synchronized. As a result, Galina had little faith in their new recruit, which Chen objected to, leading the two to argue frequently.[7] Later on, Kody informed Galina and Xavier of his discovery that the Templar Didier Hawking, a "memory-hacking genius", was the one Joseph was supposedly trying to lure out.

Deciding that finding answers in the past had become irrelevant, Galina ordered Kody to desynchronize Charlotte so they could move out and kill Joseph before he gave up the Brotherhood's secrets. When he hesitated, she moved forward and forcefully disconnected Charlotte herself. Xavier grabbed Galina by the shoulders in an attempt to intervene, but she retaliated by punching him and claiming he was a failure as a leader.

Charlotte interrupted, claiming she needed to go back, as Consus had said the mission was not yet finished. At the mention of the First Civilization being, Galina briefly hesitated, before reasserting that they needed to deal with Joseph. Xavier then drew a gun, threatening to shoot Galina if she prevented Charlotte from resynching with Stoddard's memories.

Before the situation could escalate any further, Kody intervened, informing his teammates that Charlotte could relive Stoddard's memories as they drove back to San Diego. Galina and Xavier complied and the group prepared to leave the Salton Sea hideout, with Galina setting the safe house on fire so any traces of their presence would be destroyed.

Confronting a traitor
Some hours later, as the group was arriving in San Diego, Charlotte finally discovered that Joseph's ancestor in Salem, Jennifer Querry, died before witnessing the hiding place of the Piece of Eden, meaning Joseph had been telling the truth. After parking near the Templar safe house, Kody intended to hack into the building's security cameras, but instead found a file on Joseph that revealed Xavier had overseen the mission during which Joseph had disappeared. Galina scolded Xavier for risking their lives by attempting to make up for past mistakes. Despite the tension between them, Galina and Xavier headed out shortly thereafter to save Joseph.

Galina and Xavier found Joseph in a gym, where he confirmed her suspicions by lashing out at them. Galina struck back but he broke her leg, and then she watched as he and Xavier fell into the gym's pool, where Xavier was strangled and drowned to death. Joseph prepared to finish her off, but Charlotte appeared and leaped to her defense. Joseph tried to sway her to his side, detonating a bomb upstairs to prove he was still an Assassin, albeit a rogue one. He also claimed the Assassins had recruited Charlotte because she had precognitive powers. Abstergo burst in the room to kill Joseph, and Charlotte carried Galina out through an air vent. They came out in a maintenance room, where Charlotte discovered she had accidentally killed an asthmatic employee she'd bound and gagged to cover her intrusion.

Charlotte loaded Galina into their van. Galina ordered Kody to inform Gavin and to request that a team be sent to Salem, but Charlotte told them it would be unnecessary, explaining she could tell from the powers Joseph had explained to her. As they drove away, Galina thanked Charlotte, but she was dejected after Xavier's death and her thoughtlessness that caused the death of Brad the employee.

Hunt in Mexico
Now in 2016, the Assassins fled to Mexico, with the injured Galina assuming the role of leader and being adamant about the need to track down Joseph before anything else. Once in Mexico City, they took a room in a motel and through some contacts with the local underground world, hired two discreet doctors to reset Galina's broken leg without asking questions. However, as the female doctor tended to Galina, the male, drew a pistol. Galina saw him, pulled out her own before him and shot the Templar agent to death. She then ordered Charlotte to grab his gun and aim it at the female doctor. The woman explained she knew nothing of her fellow doctor's motives, stating that he was new, and Galina knocked her out after Charlotte told her that she was telling the truth.

They moved to the opposite inn as it would be the last place the Templars would expect. While watching if everyone was coming to their former room, Charlotte realized that Consus wanted her to find the hacker collective Erudito and began to look for them on the Darknet but Galina was skeptical. Later, while Galina was sleeping after taking morphine, Charlotte convinced Kody to place her back in the Animus, to relive the memories of Quila, her Inca ancestor, whom she believed was the key to finding Erudito.

In the morning, after Kody was forced to pull Charlotte out to let the Animus recharge, Galina told them that she found the Templar Garcia-Lopez, who could lead them to Joseph. Charlotte refused to participate in what she knew was a kidnap-and-torture scenario, believing finding Erudito was more important. When she accused the Assassin leader of being jealous that Consus picked her, Galina told her that using the Animus left them exposed to an attack. The senior Assassin then coerced Charlotte into participating in the operation by threatening to destroy the Animus.

After Charlotte and Kody failed to capture the Templar, Galina immediately accused Charlotte of blowing the operation on purpose. The Assassin swore that she made a honest mistake when she attempted to stealthily tail Garcia-Lopez but got too close, allowing the Templar to spot her and run off and insisted on going back into the Animus. Galina retorted that this wasn't a game where she could respawn, as Garcia-Lopez would tell the Templars about her attackers and come after them.

Later, Charlotte ignored Galina's order to watch the van to re-enter the Animus. Galina and Kody soon discovered her and pulled her out, the former being furious that she ignored orders once again and the latter noting that the batteries were cooked. Fed up with Galina, Charlotte chose to leave to find new batteries, with an angry Galina telling her not to go or else she would be on her own. Several hours later, Charlotte detected Galina following her, who revealed that the Mexican Cartel abducted Kody and left his ear as proof while she was looking for Charlotte.

That same night, the two Assassins attempted a rescue mission at the Estadio Azteca stadium, where they were supposed to surrender in exchange for Kody's life. The injured Galina took up a sniper position in the bleachers while Charlotte began methodically eliminating the cartel goons. As Charlotte made her way to Kody, Galina placed blame on her for her mercy, as the female doctor alerted the cartel and for letting Garcia-Lopez escape, which prevented them from leaving the city. However, Charlotte was soon ambushed by the cartel leader Arturo Viera, who wanted to avenge his lover, the doctor that the Assassins hit in the motel room. Hoping his lover's sniper could even the odds, Viera shot Charlotte in the right foot, forcing Galina to show herself.

However, the Templars arrived in a chopper at the same moment, gunning down Viera, his girl and almost killed Galina. Suspecting that the Templars believed her to be very important to come after her, Charlotte pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill herself if the Templars didn't spare her teammates. After Ortega Sanchez told her that she was wrong and that bringing the head of the infamous Galina Voronina home would be enough, Charlotte offered a better deal to the Templars: in exchange for Galina and Kody's safety, she'd provide them with the location of Erudito's meeting three days from now. Sanchez then gave her a day to find out the password to the location and to surrender herself before striking her injured foot with his cane, claiming it as insurance against a doublecross and threatened to harm her friends and family if she did not hold up her end of the bargain.

During her last synchronization with Quila's memories, Charlotte discovered that the password to unlock the coordinates of the meeting was the name of a Spanish Assassin, Don Gonzalo Pardo, revealing that the Erudito meeting was in Argentina. Soon after, Charlotte prepared to respect the pact she made and turn herself over to Sanchez with the intel about Erudito. However, Galina made a pact of her own with Viera's cartel, allowing the gangsters to avenge their murdered leader and attack the Templars as Charlotte was meeting with Sanchez. The distraction in turn allowed the Assassins to escape the city.

Working with Erudito
The team took a flight to Buenos Aires, where Charlotte spotted a man sporting a sign reading Don Gonzalo Pardo, who showed them to their Erudito contact, revealed to be the young woman's grandmother, Florencia.

Some weeks later, Galina's team made a pact with Erudito; in exchange for Charlotte's help in order to learn more about an Isu entity named Consus, the collective of hackers would help them to find Joseph. After learning from Erudito that Joseph was in Somalia, going by the name "Alan Wilde", and after Charlotte asked her to capture him alive because she had a hunch about him, Galina and some Erudito field agents left for Africa.

In Mogadishu, Somalia, Galina led a group of Erudito agents trying to locate the elusive Joseph. They were observing a public event attended by Zerha Okur, a successful businesswomen and known Templar financier. After some misdirection involving a digger, Galina was attacked by Joseph behind some crates and attempted to fight back but was struck down.

My'shell Lemair managed to distract their prey with a flanking strike, before Sheed pulled a gun on him. At the same moment, a distress call reached them, informing the members of the Collective that Erudito island was under attack, and they quickly realized that they needed Joseph because he was the only one with a plane. He reluctantly agreed to go, but only if he was allowed to speak with Charlotte. During the flight, Galina sent a message to the Assassins asking for help.

Above the island, the Templar's shot down the plane causing it to crash. The Templar's surrounded the crashed plane, finding the body of Sheed in the co-pilot seat. However, they were immediately ambushed by Galina, Joseph and My'shell. Realizing that any hope of rescue relied on taking out the warship that shot them down, they headed toward the coast. Galina and her two companions assaulted the ship. The crew retaliated, and explosives upon the deck were hit amidst the gunfire effectively destroying the ship. Joseph was badly wounded and told the two women to leave him behind and to find the survivors.

Galina, My'shell and the remaining Erudito survivors were rescued by Kiyoshi Takakura and Arend Schut who were piloting a helicopter and were sent by Gavin Banks. The Assassins killed Sanchez and rescued Charlotte as she was surrounded by the Templars.

Search for the Phoenix Project
In February 2017, Galina was training her new apprentice, My'Shell, in combat and freerunning on the roofs of London, while Kiyoshi and Arend were commenting on the new recruit's skills. They were interrupted by a call from Charlotte, who reported back on her mission to find intel about the Phoenix Project in Hong Kong with Barindra Mitra's cell.

An injured de la Cruz requested extraction for her and the technician Guernica Moneo and informed Galina that all the other Assassins were exterminated. She described to Galina how as the cell was breaking into an Abstergo building they were ambushed by an undefined group with Assassins gears and skills. She also told her friend that with them was an unidentified boy, who spoke to her and acted as if they had already met before.

One month later, in a back alley outside of Abstergo offices in Berlin, Galina and Arend intercepted Heinrich Hart, a scientist and Kiyoshi's mole within Abstergo. The pair were seeking answers over their losses in Hong Kong and threatened the German because it was his information that had led the Assassins into the ambush. Hart swore that he knew nothing of what had lie in wait for them at the Hong Kong site, and told them that the Templars didn't know what happened, either, with rumors that the feared Black Cross was investigating the matter. After demanding that Hart find answers or else they would come back for his blood, Galina and Arend left.

Equipment and skills
Galina has dual Hidden Blades.

Galina is shown to have excellent hand-to-hand combat skills, as seen when she bested Master Templar Juhani Berg and almost killed him. In their fight, each of their individual blows shattered parts of separate brick walls into pieces. Galina is also a highly skilled marksman, managing to hit many members of the Mexican cartel with a high powered rifle, and is so highly skilled in stealth she has been known to enter rooms without making a sound, a fact that unsettles many of her fellow Assassins, Arend Schut in particular. Her physical agility and endurance is remarkable, allowing her to leap great distances and survive falls from great heights, as evidenced by her lack of apparent injury after leaping out of Charlotte's apartment onto another building far away, surviving a fall of at least over 40 feet.

Trivia
Galina is derived from the Ancient Greek word γαληνη (galḗnē), meaning 'calm, stillness'. It is also used as a Russian variant of Helen, a Greek name whose etymology is uncertain, but which has been suggested to be related to the Greek word Σελήνη (Selḗnē), meaning 'moon', and thus Helen would have the sense of 'shining (brightly)'.

Voronina might be based on the Russian word ворон (voron), which means 'raven'. Another possibility is that it's based on the Russian word воро́на (voróna), which means 'crow'.

One short form of her name, Galka, is a Russian word галка which means 'jackdaw'. Though it is considered a disrespectful form of the name Galina.

Galina wears a pendant in the shape of the Russian Assassins' insignia.

Notably, she is one of the few modern Assassins known to wield dual Hidden Blades.

Rebecca Crane once caught Galina talking to herself during their time in Norway. Curious, the former asked her about it, only to find Galina saying that she was conversing with her dead sister.

Galina had apparently made a name for herself among the Templars, as she was referred to as "legendary" by the Templar Sanchez.

Galina once killed three Templar agents with a candlestick.