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Dmitry Timofeyvich Yazov is a character in the Hearts of Iron IV mod The New Order: Last Days of Europe. He is the protégé of the current Glavkoverkh Dmitry Karbyshev and can be the new Glavkoverkh after his death. Yazov is a minor antagonist for West Siberia in the Russian Anarchy, a potential major antagonist should he reunify Russia, and can become the villainous protagonist if the player chooses his route.

His Evil Ranking[]

What Makes Him Heinous[]

In General[]

• Dmitri Yazov's main goal is to enact a genocide against the German people. He believes that the inevitable "Great Trial" against the Nazis is a war of extermination against Germany's people that Russia must wage to enact justice. Granted, the Nazis did commit genocide against the Russians, but that in no way justifies trying to eradicate the entire German people, most of whom were innocent and had nothing to do with the Nazi atrocities.
  • Furthermore, Yazov's goal of genocide is an utter perversion of Karbyshev's ideas. Karbyshev understood the "Great Trial" against Germany to be a defensive war in which Russia will have to survive, not a war of extermination of the German people.
• He starts developing thermonuclear bombs and biological weapons in preparation for the Great Trial. These weapons will harm not just Germany, but perhaps the entire world. So even though he doesn't start with many resources, Yazov actively seeks out more resources so he can work on a greater scale.
• Ruling Omsk with under a totalitarian regime. Everyone under his rule is indoctrinated into the Black League's doctrine. He also establishes the "Black Hand," a secret police organization that answers directly to himself, to spy on his citizens and arrest any dissidents.
• Solely engaging violently with most other Russian warlords. Most Russian warlords are able to engage in diplomacy with one another in-game; uniquely, Yazov's Black League is not.
• Though he is initially overshadowed by the German Führers and by Heinrich Himmler, this is because he has less resources than them. Furthermore, he has the ability to have a similar resource capacity as them later on through on player or AI choice; and when he does, he is virtually their equal in how much harm he causes.

In-Game[]

• If he conquers Vorkuta, then Yazov will convert the gulags there into training facilities where prisoners undergo brutally harsh military training and indoctrination.
• If he conquers them, Yazov purges the leadership of any warlord-state who collaborated with the Nazis in any way. While this often includes unsympathetic factions, it also includes states like Vyatka who only worked with the Nazis once because they were forced into it.
• If he conquers Sverdlovsk and it's ruled by Pavel Batov, he will kill Batov and erase all records of him.
• In event "The Trial of Dmitry Yazov," he doesn't deny that going to war with Germany might destroy Russia too, and considers it an acceptable price.
• Though he tells the USA and Japan that his military junta is only temporary and he'll transition to democracy, this is a lie, only intended to gain support from both superpowers. He's consistently shown to consider democracy to be weakness.
• Though he implements poverty relief programs after re-unifying Russia, this is only done out of pragmatism. This can be seen by the fact that he didn't implement any kind of poverty relief before unifying Russia.
• Having Yuri Ovchinnikov create new strains of anthrax and smallpox to use as bioweapons against the German people. Admittedly he's offput by the use of human test subjects in the bioweapons' experimental uses; however, he's still totally fine with using them on the field during the Great Trial.
• If he enacts the Great Trial, then his All-Russian Black League will invade Nazi Germany and start a war. He will oversee the genocide of the German people (most of whom are innocent civilians).
• He does not hesitate to launch thermonuclear bombs during the Great Trial, which will lead to a nuclear apocalypse and the collapse of human society as we know it.

What Makes Him Inconsistent[]

• The Black League in general is tragic and Yazov is no exception. He and his fellow Russians saw how the Nazis brutally terrorized their nation in committing a horrific genocide that they'll never recover from, and thus he's motivated by a desire to see justice, even in a warped "eye for an eye" sense.
• He is shown to have moral standards:
  • He hates corruption and reforms the Black League to get rid of corrupt officials.
  • In the event "The Sixth Circle," he is disgusted watching his Black League experiment on humans to create a smallpox-based bioweapon, and the event ends by saying "Yazov wanted to be proud. But he just felt empty."
  • If Sergey Taboritsky goes to war with Yazov, then Yazov will denounce Taboritsky in an interaction and mourn how "[t]housands of men, women, and children die every day" under Taboritsky's rule.
• He's genuinely loyal to Dmitry Karbyshev, who he looks up to as a mentor and a father figure. He is quite humble (especially for a dictator) and sees himself as lesser than his predecessor.
  • He even respectfully buries Yelena Karbysheva even after she rebels against the Black League because she was Karbyshev's daughter.
• He shows respect for a couple of his enemies. Specifically, the West Russian Revolutionary Front (since they bravely fought the Nazis in the West Russian War) and the Free Aviators (since they resisted Nazi bombing raids). If he conquers them, Yazov will let their officers join the Black League. It's shown that this isn't out of mere pragmatism, but rather is out of a genuine sense of honour.
• If the Great Trial happens and the world is destroyed by thermonuclear war, the post-apocalypse event titled "Stalwart Shell, Iron Heart" very strongly implies that Yazov realizes the error of his ways and tries to genuinely redeem himself. The figure who is presumably Yazov "laid down his arms and worked to rebuild the world, to repay it for his role in destroying it." Even if the event doesn't name-drop Yazov, there is simply no other person in the mod who fits the character described in the event.

External Links[]

• Dmitry Yazov on the Villains Fanon Wiki.
• Dmitry Yazov on the The New Order: Last Days of Europe Wiki.