Widows of Russian soldiers were filmed being gifted fur coats – but weren't allowed to keep them, an anti-war group says

A still from a video of the widows of Russian soldiers being gifted fur coats.

Miroslava Reginskaya/VK

• The widows of Russian soldiers that died in the Donbas region were filmed being gifted fur coats.
• One of the women in the video told a Russian anti-war group that some later had the coats taken away.
• They were told that the coats were intended for other people, the unnamed woman claimed.

The widows of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine were filmed being gifted fur coats – but the coats were later taken away, according to an anti-war group.

A video circulated on social media showed a group of women holding up fur coats in Makiivka in occupied eastern Ukraine and saying "thank you" in unison.

The CHTD Telegram news channel shared the clip and said that the "widows were given 21 fur coats as compensation for the breadwinner who died in Ukraine."

"Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you for taking care of us," one woman said in the video, adding that the widows were "very grateful," according to a translation by Newsweek.

The video was shared on social media by Miroslava Reginskaya, the wife of Igor Girkin, also known by the alias Igor Strelkov, a prominent military blogger and former Russian intelligence officer who played a key role in the annexation of Crimea in 2014. 

The person filming the video was identified by several media outlets as Yevgeny Skripnik, an associate of Girkin.

Last year, Girkin was sentenced to life in prison for his role in shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 by a Dutch court, but he remains at large.

His wife, who helped to deliver the coats, said on social media that 21 coats had been provided by businessman Alexander Vasilievich and were given to the wives of soldiers who had died in the Donbas region since 2014.

However, the Russian anti-war group Feminist Anti-War Resistance claimed on Telegram that one of the women in the video told them that she and at least three other women had their fur coats taken away after the video was filmed. 

The women were initially told that the fur coats were of poor quality and that they would be given new ones before being eventually told that it was a mistake and that the coats were intended for other people, according to the group.

The unnamed woman said that the women had been asked to make the video in exchange for expensive gifts from Moscow, which she said is a common practice.

The anti-war group said in the Telegram post that it was unclear if all the women in the video were genuine widows.

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