Budanov said that the Russians are preparing Maidan-3 in Ukraine

The Russians are preparing a provocation on the territory of Ukraine - Maidan-3. According to the head of the Defence Ministry's main intelligence directorate, Kirill Budanov, the main goal of the Russian special operation Maidan-3 is to sow opinions about the illegitimacy of the Ukrainian authorities inside the country, hromadske has reported.

Budanov said that as part of this operation, the Russians planned to create a situation in which the legitimacy not so much of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy but of decision-making in Ukraine as a whole could be questioned.

After that, in a short period, when they count on a certain "confusion" in Ukrainian society and duality of decision-making (the same will be projected on our army), during the first half of June to inflict a military defeat in the east, taking advantage of the fact that in the army there should be a dual opinion: who is leading us, and whose orders we follow, and so on. That's the whole point - they are not so much interested in changing the political leadership as in inflicting a military defeat," Budanov said.

According to Budanov, this "maximally expensive" operation of the Russian Federation is already failing because the Ukrainian side "knows everything they are up to.

They found nothing better than to call it 'Maidan-3'. A primitive name, but that's how it is officially considered in their documents," Budanov said.