Ludmilla Drago



Ludmilla Drago is a recurring antagonist of the Rocky series, serving as the secondary antagonist of the 1985 film Rocky IV. She is a Soviet gold-medal swimmer who serves as the wife and spokeswoman to Soviet captain Ivan Drago. She is set to return in the upcoming 2018 film Creed II as a supporting antagonist.

She was portrayed by Brigitte Nielsen.

Rocky IV
Ludmilla first appeared arriving to America with her husband, along with his manager Nicolai Koloff and trainers Manuel Vega and Sergei Rimsky, as Drago intends to fight Rocky Balboa in an exhibition match to prove that Soviet boxers are superior in combat than than of Americans. To that end, Ludmilla speaks on behalf of Drago during interviews, even scoffing off at the idea that Drago would be using steroids to rev up his strength.

However, former champion Apollo Creed decides to come out from retirement to fill in for Rocky as he wants to refute Drago's intentions to the world. During an exhibition match between Creed and Apollo at Las Vegas, Ludmilla watches as Drago and Creed boxed against each other. However, Drago's strength proved to be too much for Creed, allowing Drago to finally punch down Creed in one fatal punch. Ludmilla grins at this as she watches Creed falls to his death, much to horror of Rocky and the American public, even Drago himself shows no remorse on this by saying "If he dies... he dies."

With the American public outraged at Creed's death, Ludmilla grew worried over Drago's life since he's being jeered for causing it, even accusing the public to make the world believe that the Soviets are cruel in nature. Eventually, a furious Rocky decides to take action by challenging Drago to fight in Russia at Christmas, to which the Soviets accepted. As such, Ludmilla helps Drago in training out for the match, even watching as the trainer inject a few steroids on him.

During the match, Drago seemed to gain the upper hand (much to Ludmilla's delight), but Rocky finally turns the table, earning the respect of the Soviet audience. At the final round of the match, Rocky was able to avenge Creed's death by defeating Drago with a knockout punch, thus winning the challenge. Upon seeing this, Ludmilla became very furious and embarrassed over her husband's defeat.

Creed II
Ludmilla is set to return in Creed II, where it is revealed that she had given birth to Drago' son Viktor in 1990, and that she and Drago raised him in hate due to the embarrasment they suffered during the events of Rocky IV. She is hoping that Viktor will go on to defeat Creed's son Adonis (who is Rocky's protege) to bring back honor to the Drago family.