Moscow-based Budovnits Family Law Agency offers clients help with obtaining a deferral, appealing a summons, securing a reservation from conscription, and organizing departure from Russia "with minimal risks." The firm's contact person for these services is Yekaterina Burdinskaya, whose phone number is listed on the website, Meduza reported.
According to leaked data, Burdinskaya is likely the daughter of Colonel General Yevgeny Burdinsky, deputy chief of the Russian General Staff who has headed the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate since March 2018 and is responsible for mobilization and recruiting contract soldiers. Journalists noted that Yekaterina was registered at the same Moscow apartment as the general and was born in Baltiysk, Kaliningrad region, the year he commanded the marine infantry brigade stationed there.
The firm's website features client reviews thanking "Yekaterina Yevgenyevna" for help with reservations and evading conscription. One client, Igor, wrote on July 18 that she "helped get a reservation quickly, clearly, and without a single unnecessary delay." Another client, Valery, said he "really did not want to be mobilized" and Yekaterina "helped quickly and calmly get a reservation."
The firm, founded by the lawyer family of Vladislav, Natan, and Artyom Budovnits, specializes in civil and family law but separately advertises services related to "military service and mobilization." The work, as promised on the site, is done "confidentially" and "without unnecessary talk."
Yekaterina Burdinskaya has no legal education: according to social media, she graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute, which has no law faculty, and then worked as a sales manager at polymer and fuel supplier firms.
In October 2022, Yevgeny Burdinsky promised Russians that conscripts would not be sent to fight in Ukraine. However, since the start of the full-scale invasion, conscripts have ended up at the front, including in border regions, and some were forced by deception or pressure to sign contracts. In June 2023, the Defense Ministry published a report by the general in which he complained about "the unwillingness of part of society to fulfill military duty" and blamed "informational pressure from the network blogger community."
Meduza reached Yekaterina Burdinskaya by phone and asked whether she was indeed the general's daughter. "No, that's not true," she replied and hung up. Budovnits Family Law Agency could not be reached; lawyers did not respond to journalists' requests.