The Practice of Removal from Military Registration on Grounds of Having Spent over 6 Months outside the Russian Federation

Since the partial mobilization and new amendments were made to Federal law “On military duty and military service” (“Law on military duty”) were announced, there has been an uptick in the number of people applying to draft offices to be removed from military registration on grounds of their being outside the borders of the Russian Federation.

The fact that many relocators are no longer able to physically appear at a draft office to be removed from military registration begs a logical question: “Can one be removed from military registration without coming in to the draft office in person?”

The first matter that comes to mind is having a power of attorney processed for a family member to come by the draft office for them and apply for them to be removed from military registration. However, the military duty law does not envisage such a possibility. For this reason, there is a direct ban on documents being submitted for removal from military registration by way of power of attorney in draft offices of Moscow and the Moscow Oblast.

Even if a relative of a citizen bound to service manages to convince the employees of the draft office to accept a power of attorney, the citizen will still be denied removal from military registration.

In the case that a denial of removal from military registration is disputed in court, the courts state out that the draft office's requirement for the service bound citizen to appear in person is lawful, as far as current legislation does not directly provide for the right to removal from military registration by way of power of attorney.

On top of that, after amendments were made to Law on military duty, a lot of media representatives reported in their articles that it was no longer required to appear in person at a draft office for a citizen to be removed from military registration and that this procedure could be done through the “Gosuslugi” (“government services” website).

Indeed, there did appear an option on Gosuslugi for removal from military registration. However, we have not heard of any cases in which people have managed to successfully remove themselves from state registration via the Gosuslugi portal.

Draft offices deny removal from military registration via the Gosuslugi portal based on fictitious grounds or state, once again, that the service bound citizen must appear in person at the draft office.

In these cases, the courts side with the draft office, indicating that they’re required to appear at the draft office while the Military Register is not functioning.

Furthermore, after the amendments were made to Law on military duty, the direct indication that the service bound citizen must be removed from military registration after being abroad for more than half a year has disappeared. The new wording only states that the citizen must inform the draft office of their intention to leave the country, but it doesn’t state that the citizen himself becomes is removed from military registration.

Thus, currently, the only way to get removed from military registration is to appear in person at the draft office with documents confirming one's intentions to leave the country for a period of more than six months. In that case, the draft office will examine the citizen's application and issue a statement in the established format that the citizen has been removed form military registration.

Since mobilization is not currently taking place, we recommend visiting the military office (before leaving the country) to be removed from military registration. In the case that one fails to inform the draft office that one is going to move abroad, the citizen will be subjected to an administrative fine in the amount of 1,000 to 5,000 roubles.

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