Let $Y$ be a $d$-dimensional random vector with unknown mean $μ$ and covariance matrix $Σ$. This paper is motivated by the problem of designing an estimator of $Σ$ that admits tight deviation bounds in the operator norm under minimal assumptions on the underlying distribution, such as existence of only 4th moments of the coordinates of $Y$. To address this problem, we propose robust modifications of the operator-valued U-statistics, obtain non-asymptotic guarantees for their performance, and demonstrate the implications of these results to the covariance estimation problem under various structural assumptions.