Nastasha Romanenko

Nastasha Romanenko (ナスターシャ・ロマネンコ) is a Ukrainian weapons analyst. As a member of Nuclear Emergency Search Team, she helped Solid Snake via Codec during the Shadow Moses Incident, giving him information on firearms and nuclear weapons.

Early Life
She was born and raised in Prypiat, Ukraine and was 10 years old when she and her family were exposed to radiation due to the Chernobyl nuclear accident, on April 26, 1986. In 1990, Nastasha's parents were killed when they were exposed to lethal amounts of radiation while helping in the clean-up. This made her become very strongly opposed to nuclear weapons and nuclear power, claiming that nuclear bombing represents "an invisible war that transcends borders and generations." She later moved to the U.S when her parents died, still plagued by the effects of residual radiation poisoning and the gauntlet of procedures it entails. However, because she has never been diagnosed with cancer, the help she has been able to receive has been limited.

She joined the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) in 1992, regularly dealing with top-secret information. While in the DIA, she met and later married Richard Ames, but the marriage didn't last long and they quickly divorced. In her own words they "spent much of [their] brief marriage in disagreement over virtually every issue," remaining single from then on. The end of the Cold War saw her join the ranks of displaced military analysts. She then wrote freelance military criticism for a variety of military intelligence journals including the U.S Naval Journal.

In 1996, Nastasha attended the Canberra Commission, the world's first nationally hosted nuclear weapon abolition proposal committee. She participated in the Comission as an advisor. Afterwards, she joined NEST (Nuclear Emergency Search Team) as a military and nuclear analysist. During this time, she went to live in Los Angeles.

In 2005, Ames made contact with her and forced her into helping Solid Snake over the Codec as he infiltrated nuclear weapons disposal facility on Shadow Moses Island. She helped him by providing information on the latest news in military affairs and nuclear weapons development, since Snake was an amateur when it came to nuclear weapons. Ames kept many secrets from Nastasha, and she learned of many government, coming close to learning about the Patriots. Some of the information she uncovered was so top secret that she began to wonder if she would even be allowed to live after the operation. After the incident was over, Ames handed her a disc containing all the specifications for FOXDIE, hoping that it would keep her safe. Ames disappeared again shortly afterwards.

Afterwards, Nastasha fled from her home in California and went into hiding. She felt incredibly affected by what she had heard during her time helping Snake, and had grown tired of simply being a bystander. Putting herself in renewed danger, she wrote a book about the incident entitled In the Darkness of Shadow Moses: The Unofficial Truth.

After she published her book she donated the royalties to help fund Snake and Otacon's anti-Metal Gear organization Philanthropy. After that, she disappeared again.

Snake later mentioned to Raiden that he did not know what happened to Nastasha after she helped him form Philanthropy, but said that she was probably still a heavy smoker.

Her ex-husband, Ames, was taken hostage during the Big Shell Incident. He died after his pacemaker was shut down by his own nanomachines, as part of the Patriots' S3 Plan. The Patriots probably decided to kill Ames because of his earlier betrayal, by giving Nastasha the disk containing data about FOXDIE and letting her escape.

Nastasha later provided information to Otacon, regarding rumors of the deployment of Dwarf Gekkos. Otacon relayed this information to Solid Snake by Codec, after the latter encountered said unmanned weapons upon his return to Shadow Moses Island.

Trivia

 * Nastasha's favorite weapon was the stinger missile. Coincidentally, her favorite novel was also a thriller titled Stinger, and her favorite cocktail is the "Stinger." To put it in her own words, she seemed to "have a thing for stingers."
 * Nastasha was the only member of Snake's support team during the Shadow Moses Incident who didn't have a problem with Snake's smoking (due to the fact that she was a heavy smoker herself). She also always had a cigarette in her mouth whenever she talked to Snake over the Codec.
 * At some point in her life, she had a Chechnyan friend who went off to fight against his fellow Chechnyans and returned with PTSD from the shock and trauma of having to fight against his fellow people, and committed suicide six months later.

Behind the Scenes
Nastasha Romanenko appears in Metal Gear Solid as the player's contact on matters related to weaponry. It is possible for the player to never contact Nastasha during their playthrough since they are not required to contact her in order to complete the game.

The Metal Gear Solid Official Mission Handbook and, later, the Metal Gear Solid 4 Database, stated that Nastasha worked for the NSA. However, this is not mentioned in Metal Gear Solid or The Twin Snakes, nor is it mentioned in her novel, In the Darkness of Shadow Moses.

The novelization of Metal Gear Solid had her helping Solid Snake in diffusing a nuclear bomb wired to Meryl, because the novelization also added in the bomb subplot.