Russian authorities are offering to pay schoolgirls $1,200 to have children in a desperate attempt to boost the country’s birth rate after it lost a reported quarter of a million soldiers in the Ukraine War meat grinder.
School-age girls in the western Russian region of Oryol, some 200 miles south of Moscow and close to the Ukraine border, are the first in Russia to receive the payment if they have children.
From this year, girls in “full-time education,” will be eligible for the one-off payment of 100,000 rubles ($1,200), Oryol’s regional Governor Andrei Klychkov announced in a statement.
The region is already one of 40 in Russia that offer payment to female university students who have children, but on Thursday, Governor Klychkov extended the program to school-age girls in a statement on the region’s website.
“On Amending the Decree of the Governor of the Oryol Region dated December 12, 2024, No. 717 ‘On Establishing a One-Time Cash Payment upon Registration for Pregnancy for Women Studying Full-Time, Residing in the Territory of Oryol Region, in 2025-2027,’” the statement read.
The amendment to the bill extends the payments to girls in “full-time education in general education organizations, professional educational organizations, and higher education organizations,” the statement continued.
Klychkov’s move sparked backlash after independent outlet 7×7 Horizontal Russia shared the amendment on Telegram, leading the Putin crony to accuse the media of sensationalizing his announcement as he insisted he was following orders from the Kremlin in a statement on Telegram.
“Unfortunately, journalists did not specify that there is an order of the Ministry of Labor of Russia dated February 11, 2025, ‘On approval of methodological recommendations for the implementations for the implementation of measures of regional programs to increase the birth rate, subject to co-financing from the federal budget,’” he fumed.
He insisted that “more than 40 regions of Russia have already adopted” the changes, and said that “at present, there are no girls in our region who fall into this category.”
The governor also claimed the move was to protect girls from the “controversial decisions” they may make.
“As for my personal attitude to this norm — it should be borne in mind that young girls in such a situation often make controversial decisions,” he went on.
“And our task, since this has already happened, is to support them, to help save the life of the child and the health of the mother,” he said. “Therefore, I ask you to consider this decree as another measure of social support for residents of the region in a difficult life situation, approved at the federal level, and not a dubious news item for loud headlines.”
The move comes in the face of a growing demographic crisis in Russia, which has a birth rate of just 1.42 births per woman and soaring mortality rates, according to figures from the World Bank.
Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has called for families to have three or more children in response to the record low birth rates, while also clamping down on “child-free” lifestyles as what it calls an “extremist ideology.”
Putin’s army has likely suffered around 900,000 casualties, including 250,000 deaths, since they invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Britain’s Ministry of Defense reported last week.
