Anya Amasova

Background

When M recalls Bond from Austria after a submarine is stolen, Bond kills a Russian agent who ambushes him before parachuting off the mountain; the man is Sergei Barsov, Anya's lover. She has been recalled from her own mission by General Gogol of the KGB. She first encounters Bond at the Pyramids in Egypt, where her thugs fight him because she believes he killed the contact Aziz Fekkesh, actually a victim of Jaws, and they are formally introduced at Max Kalba's club in Cairo, trading biographical details, including her awareness of Bond's doomed marriage to Tracy, before outbidding each other for a microfilm. After Jaws kills Kalba they track the microfilm across Egypt, and at Abu Simbel Gogol and M agree to work together.

Pursuing the same objectives and trying to outdo one another, they fall in love. On the train to Sardinia Jaws attacks her in her carriage, Bond dispatches him through a window, and the two spend the night together; she then poses as Bond's wife to meet Karl Stromberg. Learning that Bond killed Barsov, she tells him she will have her revenge once the mission is over. Anya is later captured by Stromberg and held at Atlantis, his undersea base, until Bond sneaks aboard and rescues her. As the mission reaches its end she points her gun at Bond, only to discover that she is too in love with him to kill him; the cork pops off a champagne bottle Bond is opening, Anya smiles, and their superiors later look in on the two making love in the escape pod. A planned cameo in Moonraker as the woman in Gogol's bed never happened.

Helena Bassil-Morosow argues that her equality with Bond lessens as her emotional dependency grows, while Robert Caplen calls her groundbreaking within the Bond girl paradigm. Entertainment Weekly readers ranked her the fifth-best Bond girl, 007's first modern equal.