The staunchly pro-Kremlin editor of Russia’s RT news channel expressed anger on Saturday that conscription officials were sending draft papers to the wrong men, as frustration over a military mobilization grew across Russia .
Wednesday’s announcement of Russia’s first public mobilization since World War II, to shore up its faltering invasion of Ukraine, has prompted a rush to the border by elected men, the arrests of more than 1,000 demonstrators and the restlessness of the population in general.
President Vladimir Putin. AP
Now, it is also drawing criticism from among the Kremlin’s own official supporters, something almost unheard of in Russia since the invasion began seven months ago.
“It has been announced that privates can be hired up to the age of 35. The subpoenas will go to 40-year-olds,” RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said on her Telegram channel.
“They are making people angry, as if on purpose, as if out of spite. As if Kyiv had sent them.”
In another rare public sign of turmoil at the top, the defense ministry said the deputy minister in charge of logistics, four-star general Dmitri Bulgakov, had been replaced “for transfer to another role”. He gave no further details.
Meanwhile, Russia appears poised to formally annex a swath of Ukrainian territory next week, according to the three main Russian news agencies. This follows so-called referendums in four occupied regions of Ukraine that began on Friday. Kyiv and the West have denounced the votes as a farce and said the results in favor of annexation are predetermined.
For the mobilization effort, officials have said 300,000 soldiers are needed, with priority given to those with recent military experience and life skills. The Kremlin has denied reports by two foreign-based Russian media outlets, Novaya Gazeta Europe and Meduza, that the real target is more than 1 million.
Russia officially counts millions of former conscripts as reservists, the majority of the male population of fighting age, and Wednesday’s decree announcing “partial mobilization” gave no criteria for who would be called up.
Reports have emerged in Russia of men with no military experience or previous draft age being suddenly given conscription papers, adding to a wave of outrage that has revived dormant and banned anti-war demonstrations.
More than 1,300 protesters were arrested in 38 cities on Wednesday and by Saturday evening more than 740 were detained in more than 30 towns and cities from St. Petersburg to Siberia, according to the independent monitoring group OVD-Info.
Reuters footage from St Petersburg showed police in helmets and riot gear pinning protesters to the ground and kicking one of them before loading them into vans.
Earlier, the head of the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeyev, publicly announced that he had written to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu with a request for “urgent resolution” of the mobilization issues.
His 400-word Telegram post criticized the way the exemptions were being applied and listed several cases of improper enlistment, including nurses and midwives with no military experience.