Russia denies to provide death benefits to a War Widow left with 10 Children.

Sept 2025 : Russian widow Natalia Kuzmina was left to raise 10 children after her husband was killed in the war against Ukraine. Yet the state refused to pay death benefits, claiming he hadn’t died in combat. The family was forced to bury him in a sealed coffin, with neighbours garnered funds for the burial, after the officials declined to fund the funeral.

When Kuzmina posted a video appeal asking for support, many commenters turned on her instead, blaming her for having more children than she could support. And while officials have repeatedly promised to help, family members and neighbours told Media that they’ve done anything other than funding.

In August last year, despite his wife’s pleas, 55 year’s old Andrey Kuzmin signed a contract with Russia’s Defense Ministry. They have 10 children of their own — 05 in school, 04 in kindergarten, and one just an infant. Andrey also had two older children from a previous marriage. He simply couldn’t feed them all, since there was no work. The relatives narrated that Andrey only told his family at the last moment, just before leaving for training. Andrey Kuzmin left in early August, and the last time he got in touch was August 23, and the following day he was dead.

At his funeral, the local military commissar called him “a countryman who died in the zone of the special military operation”. The family was told nothing about the circumstances of Andrey’s death in the Kursk region, only that it wasn’t from combat wounds, so they wouldn’t receive any compensation, not even reimbursement for the funeral.

Natalia’s mother, Lyubov, complained that neighbours had to pool their money to bury him. The coffin was sealed; officials forbade the family to open it. “Natalia wasn’t in any state to insist. She had a baby at her breast, nine more children running around, some to get ready for school, others to take to kindergarten, and then this news, that the only breadwinner was gone. She wasn’t given a single document from him, not even a military ID”.

Last month, Natalia recorded a video describing her situation and the authorities’ refusal to help. The backlash was swift. Lyubov recalled, “even officials left comments from anonymous accounts: ‘Why did you have so many kids if you can’t feed them?’ Or, ‘Andrey went on his own, and if he didn’t die in battle, why should the state owe you anything?’  We realised we’d get nowhere with tearful appeals, so she doesn’t want to speak out anymore”.

However, after Natalia’s video spread, the Tambov regional government promised to “look into the situation” and offered to arrange an excursion to the city of Tambov for the children. Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, publicly ordered a criminal case to be initiated into the refusal to pay benefits. Local officials who attended Andrey’s funeral promised “all kinds of support” for the Kuzmin family. And ahead of September’s elections, they repeated their pledges of help for the “soldier’s large family”.

“In reality, it was not just no help, it was negative help!” Lyubov said. “They cut the child benefits. It was 75% of the subsistence minimum, now it’s 50%. Do we know why? Nobody explained! They promised help with paying for kindergarten fees, with school meals, with firewood, but in reality — nothing. They tell us to go around filing applications, but no one explains what she actually has the right to ask for”.

Alexander, a neighbour who helped Natalia record her video appeal, said that when she visited the district administration, officials brushed her off: as a mother of 10, she was already “receiving everything she was entitled to. That is how the officials treat everyone”, he said. “Rotten trees along the roads and in the villages — we cut them down ourselves. There’s no street lighting at all, not a single lamp post. We’ve filed complaint after complaint, hoping they’d at least do something before elections. No response. Or if they answer at all, it’s just: ‘There’s no money’”.

Locals suspect that the authorities denied Natalia benefits for the same reason — because there simply wasn’t money in the public budget. “There’s something very strange about that sealed zinc coffin”, said another neighbour, who preferred to remain anonymous.

After all that grief and harassment from officials, Natalia has shut down. How does it make sense that the commissar calls him a hero, and then suddenly, because he didn’t die from shellfire, his family gets nothing? And not a single piece of proof. If it was illness, then what illness? Where’s the medical report? Couldn’t the illness have been caused by service conditions? Besides, the Kursk region is clearly part of the war zone, where the Ukrainian army broke through. Where’s the confirmation that he didn’t die from wounds? They even awarded him the Order of Courage! In short, they took a man away from a large family, let him die there, and then washed their hands of it.

In early September, State Duma deputy Sergey Mironov appealed to Russia’s Deputy Defence Minister Anna Tsivileva on Natalia’s behalf. The Kuzmins, however, saw no change in payments. Instead, the Tambov regional government issued a press release: “The Kuzmin family receives social support measures in accordance with regional law. However, certain measures are application-based, and Natalia V. Kuzmina has not applied for them, though they have been repeatedly offered to her (including subsidies for utilities, assistance with medicines, a 70% discount on kindergarten fees, support for family members’ education, and discounted access to sports facilities and museums). This matter remains under the supervision of social protection coordinators”.

Team Maverick