Authorities in Russia’s Smolensk Region are planning to severely restrict access to abortions in private clinics, governor Vasily Anokhin announced on Nov. 10. The official insisted the measure was only a “recommendation,” but based on the experience of other regions, such regulations make it virtually impossible for women to terminate a pregnancy absent a clear medical justification. According to The Insider’s estimates, more than 30 Russian regions now enforce either full or partial bans on abortion procedures.
The starting point for restricting abortion rights in many Russian regions has been the adoption of local laws banning the so-called “inducement to artificial termination of pregnancy.” Smolensk adopted such a law in May 2024, defining “inducement” as “taking actions or putting forward demands with the aim of compelling a pregnant woman to artificially terminate her pregnancy by persuasion, proposals, bribery, [or] deception.” Violations typically carry fines of up to 200,000 rubles ($2,500) for organizations, while in the Kirov Region the maximum potential penalty was raised to 1 million ($12,500) this past September.
As of mid-November, such measures are in force in at least 24 regions, along with the city of St. Petersburg and the annexed Crimean Peninsula. The Insider found that similar bills have been introduced in at least six more regions. One was passed in first reading in Yakutia, while another was sent back for revision in the Tyumen Region earlier this year.
Following the ban on “inducement,” many private clinics have stopped performing non-medical abortions, fearing they could face fines. Clinics in the Republic of Mordovia, Russian-occupied Crimea, and the exclave Kaliningrad Region were among the first to comply.
In the Vologda Region, where local authorities banned “inducement” to abortion in January 2024, the governor later announced a total ban on the practice. By October 2025, he reported that only one abortion had been performed in the previous month, compared with more than 140 over the same period the year before.
In some regions, however, the measures are purely preventive. In Yakutia, the first private clinic surrendered its abortion license just a week after lawmakers passed the “inducement” bill in its first reading. In the Tula Region, at least half of private clinics halted abortion services after a closed meeting with the Health Ministry.
According to Russia’s health licensing registry, cited by BBC News Russian, no private clinic holds an abortion license in the Tver Region, nor in the republics of Ingushetia, Karachay-Cherkessia, and Tuva, nor in the far eastern Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Among this group, only Tver has instituted a formal ban on “inducement.”
By The Insider’s count, as of November 2025 abortion rights have been fully or partially restricted in at least 31 out of Russia’s 83 federal subjects, as well as in annexed Crimea and Sevastopol.
Restrictions on abortion access began intensifying in late 2023. In September of that year, the federal government tightened regulations on abortion medication sales. By year’s end, clinics in several regions had already begun refusing to perform the procedure.
A bill to ban abortions in private clinics nationwide was introduced in December 2023 but was later withdrawn after the State Duma’s health committee declined to support it. For now, restrictions remain a matter of regional authority, though federal officials continue to discuss extending such bans nationwide.
In mid-October, Russia’s Civic Chamber held so-called “zero readings” on a federal bill to outlaw “inducement” to abortion — another sign that local restrictions could soon expand to the national level.