Electronic Summons: Now Even Wi-Fi Can Find You

While Russians argued over which internet is better—wired or mobile—the government quietly decided: the best internet is the one you can be drafted through. On the website Reestrpovestok.rf, you can now check if it’s time to pack your bag for the enlistment office—all without queues or an investigator at your door.

The site has shed any mention of being in “test mode” as gracefully as students get rid of failed grades in their record books. Now there’s no “for select regions only”—electronic summonses, like spring allergies, are available to everyone. In your personal account, you can not only find out about your summons, but also print out an extract—a souvenir for friends and relatives, so they know you’re in demand.

Human rights activists from the “Go to the Woods” movement (a name as much a diagnosis of the times as a title) report that so far, no one has boasted about receiving a summons through the site. Perhaps conscripts are simply too busy applying for foreign passports while they’re still allowed.

The authorities, as usual, decided to play the silent game—no one officially announced the launch. A year ago, they promised to launch the registry in autumn 2024, then postponed it to early 2025. But as everyone knows, the main thing about a good summons is the element of surprise.

Now, under the new laws, if your name appears on the site, you’re considered “notified” after a week. Refusing to visit the enlistment office is fraught with restrictions that even mortgage bankers wouldn’t dare introduce: you can’t leave the country, buy a car, register property, become self-employed, get a loan, or obtain a foreign passport. Only one path remains—folk creativity and philosophical reflections on freedom.

Interestingly, Ukrainian authorities launched a similar system even earlier. There, failing to appear at the enlistment office results in fines, but “electronic accounts” are also in vogue. Looking at the almost synchronized reforms in Russia and Ukraine, you can’t help but recall international brotherhood—not by blood, but by bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, the West traditionally pretends not to notice anything suspicious. Apparently, everyone has more important things to do than figure out how electronic registries help control the fates of entire generations.