- "Kolya... You can't save everyone... The whole country is at war."
- ―Ilia to Nikolai, 1918.[src]
Ilia was a member of the Russian Brotherhood of Assassins and a friend of Nikolai Orelov.
In 1918, when Orelov betrayed the Brotherhood in order to save Princess Anastasia from his fellow Assassins, a disapproving Ilia nevertheless helped his friend by giving him the code of the laboratory where Anastasia was being experimented on.