They marry men who will be sent to Ukraine to collect millions of rubles if they die

Given Russia’s macabre tactics of sending waves of fighters into the “meat grinder“, the way the Russians call people to go to Ukraine, these women are almost guaranteed to be widowed. Some would even have been chained several marriages.

In 2026, the fifth year of war, the estimated death toll in Ukraine will exceed half a million, which turns the “business” of marrying a soldier into a way of taking economic advantage of death.

Confirmed casualties are more than 200,000 in the Russian army, according to data verified by the Russian military service. BBC based on obituaries, burials in cemeteries or publications on social networks of relatives.

Collect the grobovye

When the death of the combatant occurs, these women become war widows and receive what is known as grobovye‘coffin money’. This is an important compensation that the family of the soldier killed in combat receives from the Russian Government.

The sums can reach 13 million rubles (about 150,000 euros)which represents generational wealth in poor regions where salaries depending on the region vary between 30,000 to 40,000 rubles per month.

The main problem is that the majority of these marriages that occur are fake. This was the case of Sergey Khandozhkoa 40-year-old Russian from a small village in the Bryansk region, who married Elena Sokolovaan employee of a military recruiting office in a neighboring village.

According to AFPthe next day Khandozhko enlisted to fight in Ukraine, persuaded by his new wifewhich encouraged him to enroll despite not having military experience.

Khandozhko died four months later of being sent to the front line after failing to recover from his injuries while in hospital following a Ukrainian attack.

A few days after her funeral, Sokolova claimed a widow’s pension in the amount of at least 3 million rubles (about 35.000 euros), despite never shared a home with her late husband nor did she change her marital status in her passport.

Khandozhko’s brother, Aleksandrsuccessfully challenged her late brother’s marriage in court, which ruled that Sokolova had entered into a fictitious marriage “to obtain possible financial benefits in the event that her husband was injured or died.”

Aleksandr also claimed during the trial that Sokolova abused his position in the recruiting office to speed up the process of Khandozhko’s entry into military service, who did not visit him when he was wounded in the hospital and was living with another man.

Lonely and marginalized men like Khandozhko are ideal targets, because their widows will not have to share financial benefits with other family members, making these fighters easy targets for these women.

A widespread phenomenon

Different media report dozens of similar reports in various regions, including Ulyanovsk, Ryazan, Samara, Saratov and the Russian Pacific coast.

In the oblast of Tomskand real estate agent He has even been convicted for advising his clients to marry a soldier who was in the ‘special operation’ decreed by Vladimir Putin. According to him, “they could pay the entrance of the house” when collecting compensation for his death.

On the social network Vkontaktethe most used in Russia and which has a style similar to Facebookthere are different groups that encourage “Do not abandon yours” already “dating a russian soldier“sent to Ukraine.

These types of groups serve as a link for different Russian women can contact fighters and materialize this marriage, knowing that there is a high probability that the recruit will end up dying in the fight.

Some of the women work as nurses in military hospitals or, like Sokolova, are in key positions as employees in recruiting offices.

The work of some is also important civil registrars that expedite fake marriages. They have the work of corrupt police that leak information about lonely men with no obvious heirswhich are the main targets of these scams.

In any case, the phenomenon of ‘black widows’ is understood from the point of view of a Russian economy burdened by war.

In the poorest regions, the combination of high unemployment and poverty wages means that many men see their probable death on the battlefield as the only way to support their families.

12 days of life

According to some war correspondents sent to Ukraine, life expectancy average of the Russian assault infantry after reaching the front It is about 12 daysso the next victim is simply around the corner.

In one infamous case, a black widow from the city of Nizhnevartovsk married four menall of them killed in combat.

Before being discovered and accused of fraud along with her three accomplices (including a member of the local police), she had managed to amass 15 million rubles (about 170,000 euros), which is equivalent to up to 15 times the local average annual salary.

Although there is a long tradition of benefits for widows and orphans in times of war, in today’s Russia the death of a soldier has become an attractive source of wealth and social advancement.

This is complex for the State, especially if the marriage was formally legal and death benefits have already been paid.

Although a judge can annul a soldier’s marriage to a black widow, it is especially complicated in the event that the man has already died, with the money already transferred to his late wife.

In fact, politics is already trying to find a solution to this problem that the Kremlin is facing, with an increase in the penalty for anyone who simulates this type of links.

He Russian Liberal Democratic Partyof a far-right nature, has proposed harsh prison sentences of up to 10 years for sham marriages motivated by economic interests, although this is difficult to prove in a criminal court.

In any case, the horror goes beyond this phenomenon, and is that the Russian war economy has caused severe impoverishment and has forced society to commercialize with the death of its own soldiers who will lose their lives on the front line of battle.