Russian authorities have expanded efforts to prevent men conscripted into the military from leaving the country by granting security services direct access to military enlistment data, including electronic draft summonses, the pro-Kremlin Telegram news channel Mash reported Wednesday.
Men subject to military conscription now face increased scrutiny at airports and land border crossings, reported Mash, which is believed to have ties to the security services.
Officials are checking whether travelers have received draft notifications, and if a summons is found in the system, the individual is barred from exiting the country.
Under current protocol, Federal Security Service (FSB) border guards must escort these individuals to a designated area where a supervisor delivers a formal explanation and written notice warning that failure to report for service could result in criminal prosecution.
The new measures follow reports from early July that residents in several Russian regions — including the republic of Tatarstan, Mordovia, Magadan, the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district and Sakhalin — have started receiving notifications of their inclusion in the military draft registry via the public services portal Gosuslugi.
Artyom Klyga, a lawyer with the Conscientious Objectors’ Movement, said that while the registry has existed since at least September 2024, authorities started aggressively collecting personal data from draft-eligible men only this year.
The move appears to lay the groundwork for broader use of electronic summonses.
In April 2023, President Vladimir Putin signed a law equating electronic draft notices with traditional paper ones and introduced sweeping penalties for those who evade military service.
By law, the national draft registry includes detailed information on conscripts, including residential address, place of employment, education, tax filings, pension records, medical data and court history. All summonses issued via Gosuslugi are also logged.
An electronic summons is considered legally delivered seven days after it first appears in one’s Gosuslugi account, at which point the individual is automatically banned from leaving Russia.
If the person fails to report to the enlistment office within 20 days, additional restrictions apply: the individual may be barred from registering as self-employed, opening a business, applying for loans, buying or selling property, or obtaining a foreign passport.
The expanded enforcement follows previous waves of draft avoidance, particularly after Moscow’s partial mobilization in September 2022 prompted hundreds of thousands of Russian men to flee the country.
