Section 9

During the World War, the Red Army of the Soviet Union developed a counter-intelligence agency to deal with the agencies of the Steel Hand and their allies that was designated SMERSH (Russian: СМЕРШ, acronym of СМЕРть Шпионам, SMERt' SHpionam; "Death to spies"), directly administrated by Secretary of the Party Joseph Stalin. Due to the massive threat posed by the hypertech and metahuman resources fielded by the Eisenreich, a specific directorate was founded for the countering of such threats that was called "Section 9."

The program itself inherited the initial "superweapon" programs that were spearheaded by Stalin's efforts to utilize hypertech and metahumanity as tools for international communism, and thus had access to the Nemesis weapon. The initial director of Section 9 was Andreiy Zukarev, the creator of the Revenant and Nemesis both and secretly a Steel Hand spy.

When Zukarev's malfeasance was discovered, Section 9 was reorganized during the Cold War. They made a temporary alliance with the unseelie fae known as the Baba Yaga against Grigori Rasputin of the Cabal, and acted as an occasional ally to the Modern Marvels. Their major motivation was taking out threats to the Comintern posed by metahumans, while researching ways to take advantage of them. Their director, Anastasia Grimova, would later be known as Nike and manifest metahuman powers of her own.

However, America's metahuman programs were far more in advance of the USSR's, resulting in a superhuman arms race that lead to conflict between Section 9 and TRIDENT. One of the members of Trident, MW-003, was responsible for the death of Nike which nearly began a second World War if it wasn't for the actions of the Modern Marvels to heal US-USSR relations.

Xanadu dealt a great blow to the Soviet Union, and the USSR became very hostile towards metahumanity. The metahuman empowerment projects were ended and alternate methods for the neutralizing of metahuman threats. The alliance with the Unseelie Courts was never dissolved, however, and the relationship continued in secret with the dark fae helping Section 9 root out mutants and other hidden influences within Russia.

While not as advanced as Control in its methods, Section 9 was willing to push the boundaries to their fullest extent and made the most use out of "reeducated" metahumans in order to continue the oppression of the Iron Age. Many post-Soviet superheroes, such as Meta-Red, are examples of this effort.

Section 9 lost their alliance with the Unseelie Court when Faerie closed its gates on the eve of Atrophus's return, and most of its metahumans used the chaos of the Infinite Empire's invasion to rebel, many turning over to the side of Xanadu. As a result, the agency went dark, and was not heard of again for some time.

Now the CIS has officially reinstated Section 9 underneath the military organization of GRU, and though it does not have an official metahuman team presence like Vanguard it is led by former Marvel Meta-Red as its director, and massively powerful telekinetic metahuman. Its official mission is containing the Xanadu threat, but also preparing for a second Incursion when that time comes.