Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russia is preparing a disinformation campaign aimed at regime change in Ukraine, Bloomberg has reported.
According to Zelensky, Moscow is seeking to sow division in Ukrainian society by creating “chaos” domestically through a disinformation campaign codenamed Maidan 3, the ultimate goal of which is removing Zelensky from the presidency.
“Our intelligence has information, which also came from our partners. Maidan is a coup for them, so the operation is understandable,” Zelensky said.
Independent Ukrainian news site Online.ua had previously reported that the Russian security services had launched the large-scale Maidan 3 cyberattack on 1 November in an attempt to destabilise Ukraine.
Zelensky told reporters in his office in Kyiv on Thursday that senior Kremlin insiders Sergey Kiriyenko and Vladislav Surkov were the orchestrator and the brains behind the plan respectively.
Zelensky also admitted that the global shift in focus from Ukraine to the Israel-Hamas war had slowed deliveries of 155-millimetre shells to Kyiv, undermining Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
