Of course he is.

The important thing to note here is that Vova is very much under control of Dracula. Vlad Tepes was not a brutal warlord because of Dracula, he simply was one, and gleefully used Dracula's power to means corresponding with the monster's demeanor. He wasn't the only violent autocrat to be a contractor of Dracula, either, as he first came to Russia under the contract of Nicholas II. However, as I said, Vova is much different. He really acts more like a prison for Dracula than a true contractor, which is important to his backstory.

And my idea with the dragon thing was to show how far and away Dracula was from other vampire contracts (eg Carmilla, Lamia, Jiangshi), and that his monstrosity could not be expressed through a human form.