Veterinary clinics in major Russian cities are inflating treatment bills by dividing routine care among multiple staff members, specialist Mikhail Shelyakov has warned.
The warning followed an incident in Saint Petersburg, where a cat owner received a bill of 65,000 roubles after taking her pet to a private clinic for treatment.
Speaking to Russian media organisation Tsargrad, Shelyakov, a veterinary doctor of the highest category, said that finding an honest and competent veterinarian has become difficult and almost impossible. He stated that in large urban centres, most veterinary clinics are interested in generating profits from pet owners rather than safeguarding animal health.
Shelyakov identified business fragmentation and a lack of market regulation mechanisms as the primary drivers of escalating pet care costs. He explained that clinics routinely compartmentalise standard procedures among separate practitioners, with one doctor measuring an animal's temperature, another conducting an ultrasound examination, a third administering an intravenous drip, and a fourth taking laboratory samples.
Rising costs in commercial veterinary care
Shelyakov noted that this endless division of basic clinical tasks is designed specifically to inflate the customer's final bill. In Russia, private veterinary facilities operate largely as commercial businesses where pet owners pay directly out of pocket, with no official tariff caps or price regulations governing veterinary services.
Standard diagnostic tools such as ultrasound scans and laboratory blood panels are routine components of animal medical care. However, when private clinics unbundle these services into separate billable steps alongside consultation fees, total costs can rapidly escalate to tens of thousands of roubles for a single course of treatment.
Proposed tax deductions for pet medical expenses
The issue of expensive veterinary care has reached national lawmakers. In early August, State Duma deputy Dmitry Gusev proposed introducing a tax deduction in Russia for pet medical treatment. Gusev argued that domestic pets are full family members for millions of Russian households, emphasizing that owners do not spare financial resources when a dog or cat falls ill.
The State Duma is the lower chamber of the Russian parliament, responsible for drafting federal legislation. Under current Russian tax law, citizens can claim social tax deductions to recover personal income tax on qualifying human medical treatments, university tuition, and sports services, but companion animal healthcare remains entirely outside the scope of existing tax relief.
