Vologda’s governor said his people were ‘dying out.’ In one year, he cut abortions by 82 percent, sending women fleeing to neighboring regions for a procedure that remains legal in Russia.
Abortion remains legal in Russia, but access to the procedure has become almost impossible for women in at least one region: Vologda. Governor Georgy Filimonov treats this fact as his administration’s crowning achievement — a feat he has managed through financial incentives, administrative pressure, and deliberate obstruction. The numbers tell the story: Abortions in the region fell 81.6 percent last year. The independent outlet Glasnaya Media documented the crackdown in a recent report. Meduza reviews Glasnaya’s findings.
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Shutting down access
Although abortion remains legal under Russian federal law — and medical facilities are required by the Health Ministry to provide it — women in Vologda now find themselves turned away from clinics, redirected across regional lines, and subjected to coercive counseling. When a Glasnaya correspondent called private clinics across the region’s capital city to schedule an abortion, every office refused. “Our clinic does not provide that service. Management’s orders,” a receptionist at one clinic told her, refusing to suggest alternatives.
The obstacles extend to public hospitals. In the spring of 2025, Anna, 39, a mother of four whose eldest son has a child of his own, sought an abortion after an unplanned pregnancy. Armed with the required test results, a psychologist’s note, and a referral from her gynecologist, Anna arrived at the Vologda city maternity hospital, only to be shown the door. A nurse “rudely” told her nothing would be done for her, and a second psychologist showed her “models of embryos,” telling her she would be “murdering a full-fledged child.” The psychologist also urged Anna to have the baby and put it up for adoption. The hospital cited “a verbal order from the regional health ministry banning abortions in the Vologda region, as well as moral and religious considerations.”
In the end, Anna traveled to the neighboring Yaroslavl region for the procedure.
Afterward, she filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office, and the maternity hospital’s acting head was convicted of violating the facility’s licensing requirements and fined 15,000 rubles (about $200) — the minimum penalty allowed under civil statutes.
Filimonov’s population preoccupation
Georgy Filimonov, who took office in September 2024, has made demographic alarmism the centerpiece of his tenure. He has repeatedly declared that Vologda — which he calls “the most [ethnic] Russian region of Russia” — is “dying out,” citing a 3.4-percent population decline, well above the national average of 0.4 percent. He has framed restricting abortion as a frontline response to demographic collapse.
Vologda’s governor has been explicit about the financial machinery driving his campaign. As compensation for “lost abortion revenue,” the regional government paid private clinics 1 million rubles ($13,000) each to stop performing the procedure, earmarking the money for “equipment and furniture upgrades.” Doctors who talk a patient out of an abortion receive 5,000 rubles ($65); if that patient carries the pregnancy to term, the bonus rises to 25,000 rubles ($325). The results have been dramatic: Abortions in the region fell from 1,679 in 2024 to 309 in 2025 — a decline of 81.6 percent.
The legal framework for the de facto ban is a regional law that prohibits “inducing” a woman to have an abortion. The law does not ban the procedure itself, but its deliberately vague definition of “inducement” has created a climate of legal uncertainty that discourages physicians from so much as mentioning abortion as an option. “Frightened doctors simply stall for time,” State Duma deputy Alexey Kanaev, one of the region’s few vocal critics of the abortion crackdown, wrote in May 2025:
Unnecessary referrals to the regional center pile up. Equipment mysteriously “breaks down,” and the next available appointment is always “a week or two away.” Tricks and manipulations, in other words. Does any of this address the demographic crisis? No.
On social media, Kanaev has savaged Filimonov’s abortion policies, stressing that the procedure remains legal under federal law and guaranteed by Health Ministry regulations. “No region and no official has the right to violate federal legislation,” Kanaev wrote in February 2025.
Beyond abortion
Vologda’s assault on women’s reproductive rights extends to birth control. Pharmacies throughout the region are reportedly refusing to dispense emergency contraception such as Postinor — which requires no prescription under Russian law — particularly to younger women. Mifepristone-based medications used for medical abortions have vanished from shelves after authorities added them to a controlled-substances list.
Meanwhile, Filimonov has pursued what critics are calling a “birthrate import” strategy, offering payments of up to 300,000 rubles (almost $4,000) for children registered in the Vologda region, regardless of where the mother lives — a practice he describes as encouraging “obstetric tourism.” New billboards in the region’s capital urge men to “invest in the eternal” and to spend their evenings “loving their wives.” Local media report that residents are underwhelmed, mocking the signs as “idiotic” and asking what, exactly, “loving your wife” is supposed to mean.
Cover photo: Dmitry Yagodkin / TASS / Profimedia