‘Black widows’: Women accused of marrying Russian army recruits to claim death payouts

When Maria was told by the Russian military that her 59-year-old father had been shot on the front lines of the Ukraine war and had later died of his wounds, she was distraught and doubly shocked.

Not only was she unaware that her dad, Yury, had enlisted in the army, she was also informed he got married just two days before being sent to fight.

“I’m still in shock and still can’t accept what happened,” Maria said, sobbing at the kitchen table in her small St. Petersburg apartment. “At first, it felt like a dream. Even now, I sometimes wake up thinking I must have just dreamt it all. But it is really happening,” she added tearfully.

The bride, whom Maria says she had never met or even heard her father mention, was 22 years his junior and had become her dad’s legal next of kin, entitling her to official compensation.

“I’ve never even spoken to this woman,” Maria, 37, said. CNN is using only her first name for privacy reasons.

“I don’t know what to say to her because I immediately suspected it was a scam.” CNN attempted to reach Yury’s widow for comment.

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 — and often when — the worst happens, their loved ones will be looked after.

But there are mounting concerns in Russia that the benefit is increasingly being exploited by ruthless scammers, whom Russian officials and state media dub “black widows.” 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.

Deathbed weddings

In recent months, Russians have been scandalized by multiple stories about recruits being allegedly honey-trapped into marriage before perishing on the front lines, or even getting married on their deathbeds.

In one widely reported “black widow” 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.

It’s an abuse that has touched a nerve in a society that is increasingly alarmed at how the ongoing war in Ukraine — which the Kremlin still calls a “special military operation” — is taking its toll on life back home.

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.