When Russian soldiers get killed in the war, their spouses or closest relatives receive lump sums of money starting at 5 million rubles ($64,000) and sometimes exceeding 8 million rubles ($100,000). This is the Government’s way of reassuring conscripts that if, or rather when, they lose their lives on the battlefield, their families are taken care of. It’s a straightforward system, and apparently easily exploited by ruthless profiteers.
Ever since the Russia-Ukraine war began, Russian media have been reporting about so-called ‘black widows,’ women who approach and trick men into marriage just so they can then send them off to war and cash their compensation check as soon as they get killed.
CNN recently sat down with Maria, a 37-year-old woman from St. Petersburg whose father had recently been shot on the front lines in Ukraine. She didn’t even know that her father had enlisted in the Russian army, nor that he had married a woman 22 years his junior, who apparently had no problem seeing him off to war just two days into their marriage. That same woman, whom Maria has never even met, conveniently cashed the handsome compensation following her husband’s death.
“I’m still in shock and still can’t accept what happened,” Maria said. “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. I’ve never even spoken to this woman. I don’t know what to say to her because I immediately suspected it was a scam.”
The black widow phenomenon is no secret in Russia. It is discussed openly online, even though the Government frowns upon those making claims they can’t prove. For example, in a viral clip, a female real estate agent talks about women who marry men going off to war just so they can cash in the compensation upon their deaths and buy a home.
“It’s simple,” real estate agent Marina Orlova said with a laugh. “Find a man who’s serving in the Special Military Operation, and when he gets killed, you get 8 million rubles ($102,000). Lots of women are buying cheap apartments like that these days. It’s business.”
The real estate agent’s shocking remarks sparked outrage and eventually attracted the attention of Russian authorities. She was prosecuted, issued a suspended prison sentence and forced to apologize to the soldiers fighting in the war and their wives.
In some instances, members of the Russian army were allegedly involved in black widow schemes, conspiring with them to send their newly recruited husbands on dangerous missions in exchange for a cut of the compensation package when they got killed in action.
In an investigation in Primorsky Krai, a warrant officer, a sergeant, and a military accountant were suspected of recruiting vulnerable men, arranging marriages for them, and then sending them to the front line of the war where they were more likely to be killed.
The post Russia’s “Black Widows” Marry Vulnerable Men Before Sending Them Off to War for Profit first appeared on Oddity Central – Collecting Oddities.
