By letting women retire three years earlier than currently proposed, Putin's pension plan would cost Russia 3.2 trillion rubles, according to a deputy PM

Russian federal officials haven’t quite settled on a price tag for Vladimir Putin’s amendments to a plan that would raise the country’s retirement age. After the president’s national address on Wednesday, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the modified pension reform package would cost an extra 500 billion rubles (more than $7.3 billion) in additional spending over the next six years. Hours later, however, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova went on network television and said that Putin’s decision to raise women’s retirement age by five years instead of eight will cost the state an extra 3.2 trillion rubles ($47 billion).

In addition to cutting women a break, the president also called for keeping various benefits for different categories of pensioners. Golikova’s cost estimate apparently does not take into account this other spending.