Vladimir Bierko

Vladimir Bierko is a billionaire businessman financing a group of terrorists from an unnamed Russian province in Central Asia. Their homeland has been occupied by Russia for over 200 years, but Bierko and his followers wish to be free of Russian rule. Bierko came into contact with an ex-CIA agent named James Nathanson, who arranged for his followers to obtain military grade Sentox nerve gas from Omicron, a leading defense department contractor. Bierko had planned to use the gas for an attack on Moscow, but Nathanson had intended for the canisters to literally blow up in the terrorists' faces, in a plot to develop an American interest in Bierko's homeland and its oil fields. Bierko eventually found out about the doublecross and reprogrammed the failsafes for the gas canisters, but by this time CTU was looking for the canisters, making it difficult to smuggle them out of North America. This prompted Bierko to unleash a wave of terror upon the United States.