'Black widows': Russian women accused of marrying soldiers to claim war death payouts
The growing controversy has prompted calls for tighter oversight from Russian lawmakers From wartime weddings to alleged death scams Ukraine's 'vidmas' fight a very different
The growing controversy has prompted calls for tighter oversight from Russian lawmakers From wartime weddings to alleged death scams Ukraine's 'vidmas' fight a very different war Missile strikes intensify as peace remains elusive As Russia's war in Ukraine grinds into its fifth year, a disturbing new phenomenon has emerged on the home front. Women accused of entering sham marriages with army recruits to claim lucrative state compensation after their deaths have become known in Russia as "black widows" — a trend that has sparked public outrage and renewed scrutiny of the Kremlin's wartime policies.According to a CNN report, the alleged scams exploit a system under which the families of Russian soldiers killed in combat receive lump-sum compensation starting at five million roubles (around $64,000). Critics say vulnerable recruits are being manipulated into rushed marriages shortly before deployment, allowing new spouses to become their legal next of kin and inherit the payouts, often at the expense of their own families.One such case is that of Maria, a 37-year-old woman from St Petersburg, who told CNN she only discovered her 59-year-old father had secretly enlisted in the military after he was killed in Ukraine.
She was then informed that he had married a woman 22 years younger just two days before leaving for the front. "I'm still in shock," Maria said, adding that she had never met or even heard of her father's wife. CNN said it attempted to contact the widow for comment.The issue has fuelled growing anger across Russia as reports of so-called "black widows" multiply. In one widely publicised case, a military hospital nurse was dismissed after allegedly marrying five wounded soldiers before they died to collect their compensation. In another, a Russian court overturned the next-of-kin status of a soldier's wife after his family argued she had married him solely for financial gain.Russian authorities themselves have acknowledged the scale of the problem. Lawmaker Leonid Slutsky recently called for stronger protection for military families from "black widows" and other fraudsters, saying such crimes had reached "serious proportions".Some cases have gone even further. Russian media previously reported an investigation into military personnel accused of arranging marriages between vulnerable recruits — including orphans with no close relatives — and women who would later receive compensation if the soldiers were killed in combat.While Russia grapples with allegations of wartime marriage scams, Ukraine has increasingly relied on women in a very different role.A recent report by The Atlantic described female resistance operatives, known as vidmas — a Ukrainian folklore term often translated as "witches" but associated with wisdom and knowledge — as central to intelligence operations inside Russian-occupied territories.
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