Bucky was in someone else's hands (possibly another Hydra cell's) for at least a few years, maybe a decade, after the war.
He was in the hands of the USSR, judging by the uniform the soldier who finds him in one of his flasbacks is wearing. Which makes sense with the red star. So could be the NKVD played around with things themselves (particularly if one of Hydra's factories is in Poland, which I thiiiink it was, so they could pick up some tech there) but they were infiltrated by Hydra, too. So then eventually there could be swapping between cells, so then Zola gets rolled in later - IF he was personally involved. I tend to lean on the idea that he wasn't directly involved at least for a while after the initial experimentation, and Bucky's memories are muddled.
But there's about a twenty-year gap between Bucky being captured and the first confirmed Winter Soldier hit, so, there's plenty of time for various shenanigans to happen.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-08-24 03:24 am (UTC)He was in the hands of the USSR, judging by the uniform the soldier who finds him in one of his flasbacks is wearing. Which makes sense with the red star. So could be the NKVD played around with things themselves (particularly if one of Hydra's factories is in Poland, which I thiiiink it was, so they could pick up some tech there) but they were infiltrated by Hydra, too. So then eventually there could be swapping between cells, so then Zola gets rolled in later - IF he was personally involved. I tend to lean on the idea that he wasn't directly involved at least for a while after the initial experimentation, and Bucky's memories are muddled.
But there's about a twenty-year gap between Bucky being captured and the first confirmed Winter Soldier hit, so, there's plenty of time for various shenanigans to happen.