The average Russian conscript is young, poorly paid, poorly trained, poorly fed. He's being asked to fight people who look and sound like his own people, he may even be part Ukrainian (there are a huge number of Ukrainian-Russian families). He's being asked to target cities and civilian targets. It's really not surprising if there are a lot of desertions.
Not poorly trained. Untrained in many cases.
Not poorly fed. Unfed in many cases due to the logistics. Those that are getting rations if they are the best before end 2015 rations as is being suggested on social media, its hardly going to do any good.
Poorly paid? Well given whats just happened to the rouble they may well not get paid.
Plus they will be hearing lots of rumours in Ukraine. Civilians who aren't fighting them may be showing them social media which isn't filtered. Given the peaceful protests going on, thats a real possibility. And tbh the peaceful protests themselves much be pretty something. It adds to the sense of 'what the fuck am i doing here'.
There are also reports of marine refusing to assault Odessa.
My thought with this is partly that it could still be isolated incidents but also good propaganda. And there is the phenomenon of when one starts to do something and others start to see it, they follow suit and the whole thing becomes a chain reaction you can't stop.
There has been some suggestion that the reason the convoy into Kyiv is so slow is because of abandoned vehicles and desertation.
I do find it interesting that Putin ordered in Chechen fighters and requested Belarus support Russia. Why does the Russian army need this help?
I think we will see fairly quickly if a pattern does emerge on this and this is more than a few incidents.
When your army starts to mutiny, it is game over for any dictator because their strength is based on its strength and fear of it.
If the army flees, the people will get ideas of revolution.
But as it stands, its FAR too early to suggest this is anything more than a couple of incidents but the conditions are definitely rife for it.
And it would explain the lack of air cover too, if the airforce is already rebelling...