The strongly pro-Kremlin editor of Russia's state-run RT news channel expressed anger on Saturday that enlistment officers were sending call-up papers to the wrong men, as frustration about a military mobilisation grew.
Wednesday's announcement of Russia's first public mobilisation since World War Two, to shore up its faltering Ukraine war, has triggered a rush for the border, the arrests of over 1,000 protesters, and unease in the wider population.
It is also attracting criticism from the Kremlin's own official supporters, something almost unheard of in Russia since the invasion began.
"It has been announced that privates can be recruited up to the age of 35. Summonses are going to 40-year-olds," the RT editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, railed on her Telegram channel.
"They're infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite. As if they'd been sent by Kyiv."
In another rare sign of turmoil, the defence ministry said that the deputy minister in charge of logistics, General Dmitry Bulgakov, had been replaced "for transfer to another role" with Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, a long-time army official.
Mizintsev, under UK, European Union and Australian sanctions, has been referred to by the EU as the "Butcher of Mariupol" for his role in orchestrating a siege of the Ukrainian port early in the war that killed thousands of civilians.
Russia appears set to formally annex a swathe of Ukrainian territory next week, according to Russia's main 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 sham and said outcomes in favour of annexation are pre-determined.
MORE THAN 740 ARRESTS
For the mobilisation effort, officials have said 300,000 troops are needed, with priority given to people with recent military experience and vital skills. The Kremlin denies reports by two foreign-based Russian news outlets that the real target is more than 1 million.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy - who has repeatedly urged Russians not to fight - said pro-Moscow authorities knew they were sending people to their deaths.
"Running away from this criminal mobilization is better than being maimed and then having to answer in court for having taken part in an aggressive war," he said in Russian in a video address on Saturday.
RUSSIA TARGETS DAMS AS UKRAINIAN TROOPS PUSH SOUTH
Russia officially counts millions of former conscripts as reservists - most of the male population of fighting age - and Wednesday's decree announcing the "partial mobilisation" gave no criteria for who would be called up.
Reports have surfaced of men with no military experience or past draft age receiving call-up papers, adding to outrage that has revived dormant - and banned - anti-war demonstrations.