This might be an effort to shift blame away from local government.

Might be, but I've seen articles (not from ua government) about plans to do this (and US pressure on that matter) long before the government spoke about it, so might be true.

But that doesn’t really matter, what matters is that the net for the meat grinder will be cast wider.

Yep :(
What will probably happen, is that kidnapping age will be reduced to something like 20-21, and it will be presented as a great success of Zelensky the Merciful.