Tele-Veterinary Consultations Are Now Available in the Moscow Region
Remote consultations can help spare animals the stress of being transported to veterinary clinics. At the same time, in-person visits remain available when necessary.
On Sept. 21, 2026, the Moscow Region launched a tele-veterinary service. Pet owners can now receive remote consultations from specialists at state veterinary clinics via video. Appointments are booked through the regional Moy APK (My Agro-Industrial Complex) portal: users select a veterinarian and service, choose an appointment date and time, authenticate through Gosuslugi (Public Services), pay for the consultation online, and receive a video-call link in their personal account. For now, the project offers eight services.
Moy APK already combines a search for state veterinary facilities, online booking for in-person appointments, and information about vaccination points, as well as animal registration and microchipping. The new service could prove especially useful for residents of remote municipalities and owners of animals that have difficulty tolerating transportation. And given that 70% of Russians own pets, according to the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM), the potential audience for the service could be very broad.
Digital Medical Record for Kitty
In the future, the portal could offer the option of creating a complete digital profile for each animal, including a history of in-person and remote visits, test results, vaccination and microchipping records, and prescriptions. Over time, video consultations could also cover follow-up visits, not just initial consultations – for example, after examinations when test results and prescriptions need to be discussed, treatment progress monitored, or the need for a trip to a clinic determined. Meanwhile, veterinary care will not move entirely online. Experts emphasize that if an animal has an injury, needs a physical examination or is clearly in serious condition, an in-person visit will still be necessary.
One possible next step is to use AI for the initial analysis of consultations. The regulatory framework will also need to be addressed: Russia’s Rules for Providing Paid Veterinary Services currently do not specify a remote mode of service.
Tele-Veterinary Care: From Insurance Services to Government Services
Tele-veterinary care in Russia is still a relatively new field, with a history spanning only a few years. One of the earliest examples was 24/7 online consultations with veterinarians and animal behavior specialists, introduced in 2022 as part of insurance programs offered by VSK Insurance House. That same year, Rosgosstrakh introduced its Zver'yo Moyo (My Pets) pet insurance program. Such services proved popular: according to Rosgosstrakh, 47% of policyholders used tele-veterinary services during the program’s first year.
In 2024, the Vetsy service launched in Russia. The platform offered subscriptions for 24/7 veterinary consultations along with a directory of specialists. In-person appointments and home visits by veterinarians were later added to the service lineup. By early 2025, the service, which had attracted 120 million rubles (about $1.4 million) in investment, had reached 50,000 users. In 2026, Moscow also launched online consultations with specialists at state veterinary clinics via audio and video through the mos.ru portal. The service later added visit histories and electronic veterinary information about pets. In this way, tele-veterinary care has become part of Russia’s government digital services.
More Services and Integrations
Given the demand for such services, tele-veterinary care can be expected to continue developing in Russia. Online consultations are likely to soon become one of the standard ways people access state veterinary services.
In-person diagnostics and procedures will, of course, remain the primary ways of providing veterinary care, but initial assessments, as well as discussions of examination results and treatment, are likely to become firmly established online. A unified digital ecosystem can be built around video consultations, bringing together user identification, veterinarian schedules, payments, an electronic animal health record and a history of visits. The system would also be integrated with animal registration, microchipping and vaccination records.
The Moscow Region’s experience could be scaled to other regions of Russia. The prerequisites are already in place: a large share of pet owners, strong demand for online consultations and adoption of the technology by the country’s largest state veterinary services. If the service develops into a standalone platform that does not depend on a specific infrastructure, it could also be adapted to foreign systems and offered in international markets.
