Invisible to the System.” The Number of Suicides Among Children and Teenagers Continues to Rise in Russia

“Invisible to the System.” The Number of Suicides Among Children and Teenagers Continues to Rise in Russia

In 2023-2025, 15 minors died by suicide in the Belgorod region. In her report for 2025, the regional children’s ombudswoman said that the children and teenagers who died were “not seen by school psychologists, not identified by socio-psychological testing, and not noticed by homeroom teachers or parents.”

Verstka analyzed available reports by regional ombudsmen and noted that all of them propose different methods of suicide prevention, from monitoring which websites minors visit to rewarding teachers for the “early identification of suicidal signs.”

Meanwhile, in Udmurtia, where the number of child and teenage suicides quadrupled in 2025, as the regional ombudsman notes, at least 60 school psychologist vacancies remain unfilled.

Russian educational institutions are expected to prevent suicides, but teachers have a poor understanding of children’s mental health, and school administrations care only about their own reputation, says a former school psychologist from central Russia whom Verstka spoke to:

“A school in Russia, in my opinion, has one task only: to make sure the prosecutor’s office doesn’t think badly of it,” the interviewee says. “If it turns out that a child is at risk of suicide, they might call them in, yell at them, tell them to pull themselves together and think about their mom.”

Read about why the problem of child and teenage suicides in modern Russia still cannot be solved on Verstka’s website (with VPN):

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The Number of Child and Teenage Suicides Is Rising in Russia

The number of suicides has risen in at least 23 regions