You can tell of the ones that got away

I took it to mean that Pushkin was taking Koskov back to Russia undeclared. There were still gulags in those days (probably still are today).

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Koskov’s case is really difficult to assess: his scheme kills various people, he intrigues to get the SIS to kill his adversary inside KGB - the inverted scheme of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD - talks his naïve girlfriend to pose with a rifle to make his defection seem authentic, teams up with some smarmy military fetishist to buy hightech weapons with heroin base. He probably steals the Playboy from airport newsagents and tips only meagrely, too.

All in all Koskov is a creature whose departure from this earthly plane should not cause more than a satisfied harrumph - but he’s played with such clumsy puppy-ness that he’s hard to identify as villain at all.

I’ve no doubt he’s on his way to some obscure spot in the middle of the Siberian nowhere, some place that’s only got a number and a vast area where they put their bodies when the soil is not frozen. But frankly, most Disney villains seem to be ranking much higher in Satan’s service than Koskov. He’s not even a good caricature.

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Agreed, for all The Living Daylights gets right, it arguably has the worst villains in the series. Whitaker is just as pathetically bad an adversary as Koskov. I always felt that Pushkin ordered Koskov killed and his cold, dead body returned in a diplomatic bag.

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Yes, and as stromberg says, in the German version, this is clear.