The stridently 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 across Russia.

Wednesday’s announcement of Russia’s first public mobilisation since World War II, to shore up its faltering invasion of Ukraine, has triggered a rush for the border by eligible men, the arrests of over 1,000 protesters, and unease in the wider population.

Now, it is also attracting criticism of the authorities 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 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 public sign of turmoil at the top, the Russian defence ministry said on Saturday the deputy minister in charge of logistics, four-star General Dmitry Bulgakov, had been replaced “for transfer to another role”. It gave no further details.

Russia officially counts millions of former conscripts as reservists — potentially nearly the entire male population of fighting age — and Wednesday’s decree announcing the “partial mobilisation” gave no criteria for who would be called up.

Officials have said 300,000 troops are needed, with priority given to people with recent military experience and vital skills.

The Kremlin has denied reports by two Russian news outlets based abroad — Novaya Gazeta Europe and Meduza — that the real target is more than 1 million. Reports have surfaced across Russia of men with no military experience or past draft age suddenly receiving call-up papers.

On Saturday the head of the Kremlin’s Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeyev, publicly announced that he had written to defence minister Sergei Shoigu with a request to “urgently resolve” problems of the mobilisation.

His 400-word Telegram posting criticised the way exemptions were applied and listed several cases of inappropriate enlistment including nurses and midwives.

“Some (recruiters) hand over the call-up papers at 2am, as if they think we’re all draft dodgers,” he said.