Russia’s Interior Ministry said it uncovered nearly 1,400 ‘death groups’ operating in social networks since the start of 2017, TASS news agency reported. 

A senior ministry official Alexander Moshkov said "Since the beginning of the year, we have discovered around 1,400 ‘death groups’ in social networks, with more than 12,000 users."

More than 200,000 such publications in social networks were found. 

This year, over 230 criminal cases were launched into inciting children to suicide through the ‘death groups.’ "Dozens of mentors and administrators of these groups were detained," he said.

Russia’s Interior Ministry said this year the lawmakers endorsed a law almost doubling the maximum penalty for inciting children to suicide - from 8 to 15 years in jail.

Teenagers as young as 13 years old, mostly from prosperous families, become administrators and mentors among the so-called 'death groups' on social media, Alexander Moshkov told reporters on Tuesday.

"The study conducted shows that the age of administrators and mentors is, as a rule, between 13 and 25 years of age, and girls under 18 years old happen to administer suicide communities in almost half of the cases uncovered," said Moshkov.