At least six arson attacks have been carried out on military replacement offices in Russia since President Vladimir Putin announced "partial mobilization" on Wednesday.

Such cases were reported from Saint Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, the Orenburg and Amur regions, as well as the Khabarovsk and Transbaikalia regions.

Apparently there was no major damage, and no one is said to have been injured.

Such cases had already existed after the start of the major invasion of Ukraine.

In addition, arson attacks on administration buildings have now been reported from two cities.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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Meanwhile, there is growing evidence that Putin has given his defense ministry free rein to use Wednesday's mobilization decree to replenish weakened units.

"Categories of citizens necessary to perform tasks" would be called up, a representative of the general staff said vaguely on Thursday, naming some military uses.

However, he emphasized that "no order of convocation" was specified and that the "personnel requirements" of the units were decisive.

Narrow exceptions to conscription were mentioned, such as invalids, parents of four children under the age of 16 and employees of the "increased working" armaments sector.

On Friday, the Ministry of Defense listed further exceptions for economic sectors, such as information technology, media and finance.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff went on to say that each region has a "specific mission to deliver mobilized resources."

That suggests numbers.

Defense Minister Sergei Schojgu spoke on Wednesday of 300,000 reservists who would initially be drafted.

However, there are increasing reports that the official category system based on age and rank does not allow a reliable prediction of whether someone will be drafted or not, especially since the database for mobilization is said to have been neglected for years.

Civil rights attorney Pavel Chikov reported on Telegram about numerous cases of people who should not have been called up, especially because of their age.

Confusion also prevails with regard to travel bans;

In some places there are no bans in the mobilization order for reservists to leave their places of residence without permission, but in many places there are.

In the case of Chechnya, it was not even possible to find the order, Chikov said.

However, the ruler of the North Caucasus republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has presented himself as a particularly effective troop contributor since the invasion of Ukraine, said there would be no mobilization in Chechnya because they had already "exceeded the draft plan by 254 percent".

The exiled Russian news portal "Medusa" reported, citing the environment of a ministry, that it was planning to conscript a total of 1.2 million people into the army, mainly from rural areas "where there is no media, no opposition and a lot of support" for the army give war.