{"id":1975,"date":"2026-08-06T08:56:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T08:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1975"},"modified":"2026-08-06T08:56:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T08:56:49","slug":"black-widows-women-accused-of-marrying-russian-army-recruits-to-claim-death-payouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=1975","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Black widows\u2019: Women accused of marrying Russian army recruits to claim death payouts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\u2018Black<\/div>

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When a Russian soldier is killed in battle, his next of kin receive lump sums from the military starting from 5 million rubles ($64,000), compensation intended to reassure recruits that if \u2014 and often when \u2014 the worst happens, their loved ones will be looked after.<\/p>\n

But there are mounting concerns in Russia that the benefit is increasingly being exploited by ruthless scammers, whom Russian officials and state media dub \u201cblack widows.\u201d They dupe vulnerable men into sham marriages before seeing them off to war, then claim compensation if their new husbands are killed, cutting out other relatives.<\/p>\n

In recent months, Russians have been scandalized by multiple stories about recruits being allegedly honey-trapped\u202finto marriage before perishing on the front lines, or\u202feven getting married on their deathbeds.<\/p>\n

In one widely reported \u201cblack widow\u201d case last year, a nurse working at a military hospital was fired after being accused of marrying five soldiers in her care before they succumbed to their injuries in order to collect their death benefits.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an abuse that has touched a nerve in a society that is increasingly alarmed at how the ongoing war in Ukraine \u2014 which the Kremlin still calls a \u201cspecial military operation\u201d \u2014 is taking its toll on life back home.<\/p>\n

Against a backdrop of a worsening economy, fuel shortages, the ever-growing human cost and damaging Ukrainian strikes on Russian soil, condemnation of the scammers is getting louder, with mounting public calls for an official crackdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe families of Special Military Operation participants need protection from brazen criminals, from so-called \u2018black widows,\u2019 from financial and telephone scammers and predators who target those who have received monetary payouts,\u201d said Leonid Slutsky, a prominent lawmaker in Russia\u2019s usually uncritical parliament. Such \u201ccrimes\u201d are now reaching \u201cserious proportions,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

After Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin actively encouraged Russian recruits to get married, perhaps to bolster family support or to instill an additional motivation to fight. The pro-marriage campaign was also in line with Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s promotion of so-called traditional values, amid demographic decline in Russia.<\/p>\n

The authorities sought to facilitate speedy marriages for newly enlisted soldiers that would avoid the usual notice period, while state television broadcast mass wedding events arranged by local officials to further streamline the process.<\/p>\n

Marrying a soldier, especially a soon-to-be-deployed recruit \u2014 for whom life expectancy on the \u201cmeat-grinder\u201d front lines is now catastrophically short<\/a> \u2014 has even been cast as a way onto the Russian property ladder.<\/p>\n

In a video podcast recorded in the Siberian city of Tomsk last year, one Russian real estate agent offered astonishingly cynical advice to would-be property buyers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a 30-year-old woman, but if I want to buy an apartment, where am I supposed to get the money?\u201d the host, Darya Cherdantseva, asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simple,\u201d the agent, Marina Orlova, responded. \u201cFind a man who\u2019s serving in the Special Military Operation and when he gets killed, you get 8 million rubles,\u201d or $102,000, she said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots of women are buying cheap apartments like that these days. It\u2019s business,\u201d Orlova added.<\/p>\n

Both women were eventually prosecuted, handed long community-service sentences and forced to apologize to soldiers and their wives.<\/p>\n

Russian courts have intervened in other high-profile cases, too, such as the very public spat between the mother of one Russian soldier from Ryazan and a local woman he met and married during a short period of leave from the front lines.<\/p>\n

The soldier, Georgy Kostyrko, met Angelina Varyukhina online and married her 10 days later, before rejoining his unit.<\/p>\n

According to Kostyrko\u2019s mother, the new wife soon began posting photographs and videos of herself with other men on social media, and her son filed for divorce. But he was killed in action before the paperwork was finalized, leaving her as the legal recipient of the death compensation.<\/p>\n

Varyukhina offered a different account, saying accusations about her brief marriage were an attempt to \u201cblacken\u201d her reputation, and that she and Kostyrko reconciled after falling out. She said images of her online with other men were intended to make Georgy jealous.<\/p>\n

Varyukhina\u2019s next-of-kin status was eventually overturned in the courts, but the scandal provoked widespread outrage.<\/p>\n

But there have also been shocking incidents where members of the Russian security forces appear to have been involved in orchestrating \u201cblack widow\u201d scams, conspiring with women to send their newly recruited husbands on dangerous missions in exchange for a share of the compensation if they are killed.<\/p>\n

In one case last year, Russian media reported on an investigation in Primorsky Krai, in the country\u2019s far east, into an alleged scheme involving a warrant officer, a sergeant and a military accountant. The three were accused of recruiting vulnerable men, including orphans and people with no close relatives, and arranging marriages for them. The recruits were allegedly then sent to high-risk front-line positions where they were more likely to be killed in combat. There have been no public updates since on the case.<\/p>\n

Back in St. Petersburg, Maria took CNN to her father\u2019s old apartment, which has now been sold. She is convinced he was also scammed out of his home.<\/p>\n

Behind a broken door, the new owners insisted it was a legitimate sale and that they had never even met the seller. But the money and the widow, like Maria\u2019s dad, are now long gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is absolutely nothing left, and that is incredibly painful,\u201d Maria sobbed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a single thing to remind me of him, just the keys to his apartment, which don\u2019t even work anymore, and that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Katharina Krebs and Ana Archen contributed reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a Russian soldier is killed in battle, his next of kin receive lump sums from the military starting from 5 million rubles ($64,000), compensation intended to reassure recruits that if \u2014 and often when \u2014 the worst happens, their loved ones will be looked after. But there are mounting concerns in Russia that the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/amayei.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/2026\/08\/screenshot-2026-07-28-at-15-30-26_png.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[3698,3315,378,591,2282,3699,1936,3700,1549,3697,2163],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-accused","tag-army","tag-black","tag-claim","tag-death","tag-marrying","tag-payouts","tag-recruits","tag-russian","tag-widows","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}