Paul Goble
Staunton, June 10 – Yet another program, promoted by the Putin regime, is being scaled back and may end entirely because of popular opposition. That involves paying subsidies to ever-younger teenage girls who give birth, something many object to because at least some of the young women are now having children to get government money rather than to start families.
For background on this program, which Moscow has operated through the regions, and the opposition it faced from the start by some demographers and hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/rf-regions-promoting-teenage.html and jamestown.org/program/many-russians-outraged-by-government-promotion-of-underage-pregnancy-to-boost-birthrate/.
In the last few weeks, officials in some reasons have been cutting back this program and some appear to be on the brink of cancelling it altogether given this opposition (nemoskva.net/2025/06/09/galya-u-nas-otmena-vlasti-regionov-kotorye-obeshhali-platit-beremennym-shkolniczam-i-studentkam-zadumalis-nad-sokrashheniem-spiskov/).
Officials in Omsk Oblast have placed restrictions on just who can get the money including that the young women involved must live and study in that region to get money from it, an indication that some of the young women may be going from one region to another in the hopes of getting more funds.
In St. Petersburg, a member of the legislative assembly called for ending the program for any minor lest the government create even more problems for children and itself by encouraging young women to have children long before they are in a position to take care of them (t.me/shtannikovazaks/299).
And the authorities in Altai Kray said that they would give priority to university-level students rather than anyone still a pupil in schools because in their view, such aid must help “young student families” rather than just produce more babies, some of which may end up as orphans (asfera.info/news/129354-stali-izvestny-priciny-po-kotorym-nacali-vyplacivat-posobia-beremennym-ucasimsa?utm_source=chatgpt.com).