Russian-State Media Editor Rips Military for Drafting Wrong Men

The editor-in-chief of RT, a Russian-state media broadcaster, criticized the Russian military on Saturday for allegedly drafting the wrong men to fight in the war in Ukraine amid the nation's "partial mobilization" efforts.

"It has been announced that privates can be recruited up to the age of 35. Summonses are going to 40-year-olds," RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan wrote on Telegram, according to Reuters. "They're infuriating people, as if on purpose, as if out of spite. As if they'd been sent by Kyiv."

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a "partial mobilization" of the nation amid the ongoing war in Ukraine, saying the step was necessary "to protect our Motherland, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to ensure the security of our people and people in the liberated territories."

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu later specified that the partial mobilization could mean officials call up to 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine.

The development this week set off protests throughout Russia, with more than 1,300 people being arrested in 38 cities across the country for demonstrating after Putin's announcement, according to the human rights project OVD-Info. Meanwhile, an online petition opposing the mobilization received more than 327,000 signatures.

Following Putin's speech this week, Slovakian Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad said the partial mobilization would lead to the Russian president's ousting.

"It is about time we realized one thing—as he starts calling up the sons of Russian mothers, he will quite clearly get entangled in a very complicated political situation, and I assume, therefore, that Putin, as the President of the Russian Federation, will end up being overthrown," Nad said in a statement.

Videos have been shared on social media that reportedly show those being drafted drunk before being sent to the war. One video shows a drunken man staggering onto the tarmac of an airport before getting on what is believed to be a military flight.

"Absolute scenes at an airfield in Russia's Far East where one man mobilised to fight in Ukraine was so drunk that he reportedly fell asleep in the long grass next to the runway," BBC journalist Francis Scarr tweeted Friday.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a United States-based think tank," said this week that Putin's mobilization "will not generate significant usable Russian combat power for months."

It added that the move "reflected many problems Russia faces in its faltering invasion of Ukraine that Moscow is unlikely to be able to resolve in the coming months."

The mobilization comes after Ukraine reclaimed more than 3,000 square miles through counteroffensives in Kherson, a key southern city that serves as a gateway to Russian-annexed Crimea, and areas near Kharkiv, a major city in Eastern Ukraine.

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment.