60 Russian soldiers who organized a riot to refuse to fight in Ukraine face prison sentences

About 60 Russian paratroopers mutinied and refused to fight in Ukraine, according to Russian press reports related to Putin's government.

The men, who belonged to the key headquarters of the Pskov Airborne Forces in northern Russia, could now face prison sentences for insubordination.

The rejection troops had been transferred to Belarus as part of the invasion force, but after their mutiny they were sent in disgrace to their base in Pskov.

Some have been fired and branded “cowards”, while others will face the Russian equivalent of a court-martial with probable prison sentences.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is reported to have sent one of his deputies to Pskov to handle insubordination.

Ukraine claimed that the troops were elite paratroopers, but this has not yet been confirmed, despite the fact that Pskov is a key headquarters of Russia's elite airborne forces.

Russian opposition media outlet Pskovskaya Guberniya reported: “About 60 soldiers from Pskov refused to go to war on Ukrainian territory, according to our sources.”

“After the first days of the war, they were first taken to the Republic of Belarus, and then returned to their base in Pskov. Most of them are currently being dismissed, but some are threatened with criminal proceedings,” said the Russian media.

This is the latest in several cases of Russian troops refusing to obey Vladimir Putin's orders to invade Ukraine to “denazify” the country.

A former captive Russian soldier from Pskov, 23-year-old Vladimir Safronov, told his Ukrainian interrogators about the problems with rations and how his officers were looting the civilian population. “Things are bad with food, we are constantly keeping it,” he said.

“Very often we have a situation where a ration for one person is shared between two people. We are eating mainly what we find inside the houses (of civilians in occupied Ukraine), he added.

The young soldier claimed to have personally seen many looting, mainly perpetrated by sergeants majors and commanders, a practice he said he did not share and repudiate.

“I saw civilians hiding, people who couldn't evacuate, who lived in constant fear. I felt very sorry for them, it was terrifying to find them,” he stressed.

Earlier reports said that the elite troops of Khakassia's OMON special forces had refused to fight.

In another case, troops from the unofficial state of South Ossetia allegedly returned to their homes on foot after refusing to participate in hostilities in Ukraine.

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