‘Like a zombie’ A Russian mayor is withholding her newlywed husband’s body after he died in Ukraine. Locals say this was her second marriage to a soldier.
The mayor of a village in Russia’s Republic of Buryatia is refusing to release the body of a soldier who died fighting in Ukraine to his relatives — a man she had married just months before his death. It’s not the first time this mayor has lost a spouse: her previous husband also went to the front in Ukraine and never returned. Now, her second husband’s family is asking prosecutors to halt the burial. Journalists from the independent outlet People of Baikal spoke to the man’s sister about the situation. Here’s what they learned.
The family of 40-year-old Buryatia native Alexey Sergienko is being prevented from burying him beside his mother in his hometown. Svetlana Krivogornitsyna, the mayor of Ust-Barguzin and Alexey’s widow, is refusing to release his body, insisting that his funeral take place in her village. Relatives say Krivogornitsyna lived with Alexey for only a few weeks, and that he had not planned to go to war before meeting her.
Alexey’s sister, Olga Chernysheva, said the family had no idea her brother had married the 51-year-old mayor. For the past 15 years, Alexey had lived in Rostov-on-Don. He met Krivogornitsyna in spring 2025 while delivering packages to Russian troops in occupied Mariupol.
Our only hope is you. Support Meduza before it’s too late.
After returning from Mariupol, Alexey told his family that civilian volunteers were supposedly being offered free “trips to Lake Baikal,” and that he planned to go. Olga recalled being puzzled. “I thought it was nonsense — what trips?” she said. “They were collecting money to help the soldiers. He said he was just going to rest for a bit and then visit our mother’s grave. He wanted to see home; he hadn’t been there in 15 years.”
According to Olga, Krivogornitsyna repeatedly urged Alexey to come to Ust-Barguzin and eventually bought him train tickets. By May, the village head had registered him temporarily at her address, and on June 16, they were married. That same day, Alexey signed a contract with the Defense Ministry and shipped out to Ukraine.
“He was a [civilian] volunteer; he hadn’t planned to go to the front,” Olga said.
People tried to talk him out of it. Women who worked with him said, “Lesha, why do you need to go there? You’re already doing so much here.” But later he said, “They’ll take me anyway. There will be a mobilization regardless.” He said the district heads were given quotas for how many volunteer [soldiers] needed to be sent to the front. […] He was like a zombie. Later he told me that [Krivogornitsyna] invited a shaman who said everything would be fine and that he would come back home.
Four months later, Alexey died at the front.
When the family arrived at the morgue in Rostov-on-Don to identify Alexey’s body, they were told that only his “legal wife” could make decisions about his remains. According to his relatives, Krivogornitsyna is refusing to release it and insists that the funeral be held in Ust-Barguzin, where Alexey had no friends or acquaintances. The village head has offered to let the family take the body “later,” but they don’t trust her.
“What is this if not a sham?” Olga said. “If you shout from the rooftops that this is your beloved, but only register his residency for a three-month period, were you already waiting for him [to come home] in a coffin three months later? A loving woman would never, ever let her beloved go, no matter what. I’m convinced this is all about getting [military death benefit] payments.”
Olga added that the family isn’t interested in money; they only want to see Alexey buried in his native Bagdarin, next to his mother.
On October 24, the day this article was published, Olga was flying to Ulan-Ude to file a complaint with the local prosecutor’s office in an effort to halt the burial. She said she was prepared to take the case to a magistrate court to prove Krivogornitsyna’s marriage to her brother was fictitious.
Krivogornitsyna herself posted on social media asking residents to “stay out of her personal life” and stating that all compensation from Alexey’s death would “go to charitable foundations.”
One Ust-Barguzin resident told People of Baikal that Krivogornitsyna had been involved in a similar situation before. According to her, the village head previously had a young husband named Anatoly who also went to fight in Ukraine. He was wounded there, and shortly afterward Krivogornitsyna bought a car, claiming it was paid for with “compensation for his injury.” Since then, the man has not been seen in the village.
Sign up for Meduza’s daily newsletter
A digest of Russia’s investigative reports and news analysis. If it matters, we summarize it.