Black-market criminal, opportunist, and defiant capitalist based in St. Petersburg, Russia, portrayed by rotund Robbie Coltrane in GoldenEye and The World Is Not Enough. A former KGB agent, Zukovsky met Bond (Pierce Brosnan) on one of 007’s previous, unnamed missions. Bond wounded him, so he walks with a limp. Although there’s obviously no love lost between the two men, there is a grudging respect between them.

Valentin is reminiscent of Milos Columbo, the colorful smuggler portrayed by Topol in For Your Eyes Only. By the time Zukovsky returns in The World Is Not Enough, he’s also running a casino in Baku, Azerbaijan. He saves James Bond’s life when Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) nearly snaps Bond’s neck in a medieval torture machine—at the cost of his own life.