Russian authorities have commenced cash payments up to $1,200 and other incentives for schoolgirls to give birth.

More than 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and hundreds of thousands others injured since the Kremlin launched a full scale war on Ukraine in February 2022, which has significantly impacted Russia’s population, leaving the country in desperation to mitigate the crisis.

According to The Moscow Times, many regional governments in Russia have started to make several decrees offering incentives for schoolgirls to get pregnant, including the latest program launched by Siberia’s Kemerovo region this week. 

Authorities in Kemerovo are offering a one-time payment of $1,200 to legal guardians of Russian schoolgirls if their daughters were at least 22 weeks pregnant as of January 1, as Moscow shifts focus to boosting birth rates, which have fallen to a 25-year low while mortality rates rise.

The payments apply to full-time students enrolled in “general, professional or higher education institutions” who are registered at a maternity hospital, according to the decree.

At least eight Russian regions including Oryol and Bryansk have started the pregnancy-for-cash programme for schoolgirls, while more than 40 other regions have pledged to commence payment of $1,200 to female university students for having children later this year.