'Black widows': Russian women accused of marrying soldiers to claim war death payouts

As Russia's ongoing conflict in Ukraine enters its fifth year, a troubling trend has surfaced domestically: a phenomenon known as "black widows." These are women accused of marrying Russian soldiers hastily, often before they deploy, in order to claim substantial state compensation upon their untimely deaths. The practice has drawn public outrage and heightened scrutiny of Russia's wartime policies.

According to CNN, the alleged scams take advantage of a system where families of Russian soldiers killed in combat can receive lump-sum payments, starting at five million roubles (approximately $64,000). Critics argue that vulnerable recruits are being coerced into marrying their partners just days before deployment, allowing the new spouses to become their legal next of kin and inherit the compensation, sometimes at the expense of their own families.

The story of Maria, a 37-year-old woman from St Petersburg, illustrates this issue. She discovered after her 59-year-old father was killed in Ukraine that he had secretly enlisted and married a woman 22 years his junior just two days before heading to the front. Maria was shocked to learn she had never met or heard of her father's new wife. CNN attempted to contact the widow for comment but did not receive a response.

The issue has sparked growing anger across Russia as reports of "black widows" proliferate. In one high-profile case, a military hospital nurse was disciplined for allegedly marrying five wounded soldiers before their deaths to collect their compensation. Another instance involved a Russian court overturning a soldier's wife's next-of-kin status after her family alleged she had married him solely for financial gain.

Russian authorities have acknowledged the scale of the problem and called for stronger protection of military families from such fraud. Lawmaker Leonid Slutsky recently urged for more robust safeguards against "black widows" and other forms of deception. Some investigations have even extended to military personnel accused of orchestrating marriages between vulnerable recruits, including orphans without close relatives, and women who would later receive compensation if the soldiers were killed in combat.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, women are playing a different yet crucial role in the resistance. The Atlantic recently highlighted female resistance operatives, known as "vidmas," who are central to intelligence operations inside Russian-occupied territories. These women, often referred to as "witches" in Ukrainian folklore but associated with wisdom and knowledge, gather information on Russian troop movements, logistics hubs, and air-defense systems.

They transmit this information back to Ukrainian forces, enabling them to target Russian infrastructure with precision using drones. One operation reportedly involved an intelligence officer posing as a lonely woman online, convincing a Russian-linked commander to share a photograph that inadvertently exposed his unit's location, which was later struck by a Ukrainian drone.