The Russian Federation has been trying to destabilize the political situation in Ukraine for several years, but these attempts have failed, so the armed aggression against our state has not achieved its goals. This was stated by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an interview for Russian media from "Zygar" YouTube channel, "Rain" TV channel, "Meduza" portal, "Kommersant" and "Novaya Gazeta".
The Head of State stressed that Russia was making efforts to destabilize the situation in Ukraine through the activities of certain political parties, which, among other things, participated in local elections.
The President noted that Russia has chosen the tactics of victory of pro-Russian forces in the regions of our state and even bought local organizations of some of them.
"After that, we saw the first steps - in certain local, district or regional councils, they came up with ultimatums: to block, to remove representatives of the ruling party somewhere. Somewhere they insisted that certain reforms should not be applied, as they are moving towards decentralization of power and will figure it out themselves," said Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Head of State noted that these forces of Russian influence were trying to initiate early elections to the Verkhovna Rada to provoke political chaos in Ukraine.
"This destabilization was necessary in order to split the majority with strong regional governance. Chaos in the economy and instability of the political spirit in Ukraine would lead to escalation on the part of the Russian Federation," the President said.
According to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, such destabilization could have greatly simplified Russia's plans to occupy Ukraine, but destabilization has not taken place.
According to the President, the political leadership of the Russian Federation may have received false predictions that the Ukrainian people will meet the occupiers "with flowers and smiles" and the current government allegedly has no support in society.
"And then, when they saw that things were going a little wrong, of course, the parallel solution was to neutralize those who stabilize the situation in power. And when there is a war, who can guarantee stability? During martial law, only the President can by virtue of his powers," Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, explaining why there were forceful attempts to eliminate him.