Relatives of soldiers killed in Russia's war in Ukraine are entitled to payments—from insurance, the governor, and the president. Altogether, this amounts to approximately 14 million rubles, divided among the closest relatives. These are the stories of three women—Oksana Nazarenko from Karachay-Cherkessia, Natalya Makarova from St. Petersburg, and Anastasia Yudina from the Leningrad region. They are suing their sons' fathers for the payments, claiming that they failed to raise their children and were not present in their lives after the divorce. For us, this study isn't about money, but about the psychology of many Russian families. Where the figure of an absent father was replaced by the cadet "brotherhood," and poverty was compensated for by the dream of a military career for their child.