As Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds into its fifth year, a disturbing new phenomenon has emerged on the home front. Women accused of entering sham marriages with army recruits to claim lucrative state compensation after their deaths have become known in Russia as “black widows” — a trend that has sparked public outrage and renewed scrutiny of the Kremlin’s wartime policies.According to a CNN report, the alleged scams exploit a system under which the families of Russian soldiers killed in combat receive lump-sum compensation starting at five million roubles (around $64,000). Critics say vulnerable recruits are being manipulated into rushed marriages shortly before deployment, allowing new spouses to become their legal next of kin and inherit the payouts, often at the expense of their own families.One such case is that of Maria, a 37-year-old woman from St Petersburg, who told CNN she only discovered her 59-year-old father had secretly enlisted in the military after he was killed in Ukraine. She was then informed that he had married a woman 22 years younger just two days before leaving for the front. “I’m still in shock,” Maria said, adding that she had never met or even heard of her father’s wife. CNN said it attempted to contact the widow for comment.From wartime weddings to alleged death scamsThe issue has fuelled growing anger across Russia as reports of so-called “black widows” multiply. In one widely publicised case, a military hospital nurse was dismissed after allegedly marrying five wounded soldiers before they died to collect their compensation. In another, a Russian court overturned the next-of-kin status of a soldier’s wife after his family argued she had married him solely for financial gain.Russian authorities themselves have acknowledged the scale of the problem. Lawmaker Leonid Slutsky recently called for stronger protection for military families from “black widows” and other fraudsters, saying such crimes had reached “serious proportions”.Some cases have gone even further. Russian media previously reported an investigation into military personnel accused of arranging marriages between vulnerable recruits — including orphans with no close relatives — and women who would later receive compensation if the soldiers were killed in combat.Ukraine’s ‘vidmas’ fight a very different warWhile Russia grapples with allegations of wartime marriage scams, Ukraine has increasingly relied on women in a very different role.A recent report by The Atlantic described female resistance operatives, known as vidmas — a Ukrainian folklore term often translated as “witches” but associated with wisdom and knowledge — as central to intelligence operations inside Russian-occupied territories. Working undercover in schools, hospitals and local administrations, they gather information on Russian troop movements, logistics hubs and air-defence systems before relaying coordinates for Ukrainian drone strikes.Resistance leaders say women can move more freely than men under occupation, making them indispensable to Kyiv’s covert campaign. One operation reportedly involved an intelligence officer posing online as a lonely woman, persuading a Russian-linked commander to share a photograph that inadvertently revealed his unit’s location, which was later targeted in a drone strike.Missile strikes intensify as peace remains elusiveThe revelations come as fighting between Russia and Ukraine continues to escalate. Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region this week killed at least 17 people and injured dozens, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blaming a shortage of Patriot missile interceptors for Ukraine’s inability to stop the barrage.At the same time, Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone attacks inside Russia, targeting logistics hubs, oil facilities and warehouses linked to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, arguing they support Moscow’s war effort. Russia says it intercepted hundreds of Ukrainian drones overnight while insisting its own missile strikes targeted military-related infrastructure.As the conflict grows increasingly dependent on intelligence, drones and long-range strikes, the stories emerging from both sides reveal how the war’s human cost now extends far beyond the battlefield.
