Military enlistment offices have been targeted by rampaging gunmen and arsonists since Vladimir Putin ordered the "partial mobilisation" of the Russian public last week.
An independent Russian media watchdog claims there have been at least 17 arson incidents targeting recruitment centres and other official buildings following the announcement on Wednesday.
The 300,000-man draft was rolled out after Ukraine conducted a lightning counteroffensive that sent Putin 's boys packing from the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
Within hours of Putin's national address, Russia's borders were gridlocked with young men desperately trying to dodge the draft. The Russo-Ukraine war, which started in February, has already claimed between 70 to 80,000 Russian lives, according to US estimates.
But as fathers and sons are torn away from their families by Putin's executive order, the cracks are starting to show in Russia as protests rip through the country and enraged residents firebomb enlistment offices .
Russians have been attacking the offices as a protest against the war since the start of the conflict, but the rate of attacks has stepped up dramatically over the past week.
A fire was reported at a recruitment centre in St Petersburg earlier this week, with a similar incident at an enlistment office in Nizhny Novgorod blamed on a person using a Molotov cocktail.
But in the most terrifying incident yesterday, arson was not to blame. An unemployed local man was filmed as he stormed a recruitment office in Siberia and shot the chief recruiter at close range - leaving him in critical condition.
The attacker said "no one is going to fight" before opening fire, according to local Russian media.
The gunman was reportedly angry that his friend had been drafted even though he did not have previous military experience.
Another man appears to set himself on fire in Ryazan, around 130 miles southwest of Moscow, in a video shared to social media. He reportedly shouted: "I don’t want to go to war."
Widespread protests have occurred across Russia, particularly in Moscow and St Petersburg, and thousands of Russians have been arrested. Some of them were reportedly given military papers upon arrest, the Express reports.
Many men who can afford to flee Russia have booked flights out of the country or headed to the border - Finland said that 17,000 Russians crossed over the weekend.
Unverified videos shared to social media show large crowds of young men, said to be in Dagestan, punching and beating police officers as they attempt to find men to fight.
US based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said the conditions were ripe to create an "incapable" reserve force.
It said in an update: "Russian partial mobilization efforts are suffering from serious and systemic problems in their first days, generating popular resentment and setting conditions to produce a mobilised reserve force incapable of accomplishing the tasks Russian President Vladimir Putin has set for it.
"Protests, attacks against recruiting centres, and vandalism have occurred across Russia in the first 48 hours after the announcement of partial mobilisation."
