Podoliak: Russian authorities likely to stage provocations against their own people on May 9

This was stated on television by Mykhailo Podoliak, an adviser to the head of the Presidential Office, Ukrinform reports.

“As for provocations, he [dictator Vladimir Putin] is from a specific special service, and for them provocation is an element, a mandatory element of the work they do. And we saw when he came to power in 2000, that is, the Second Chechen War began with appropriate provocations. And in general, they constantly use the element of attacking their citizen, their country, in various ways. And they can do this in principle, despite the fact that in the twenty-first century it is obvious who is doing what. That is, all the terrorist attacks that they organize, the motives are obvious, who did it, there is video, recording of all this, but they can still provoke their society in order to get a certain propaganda effect. That is, to attack it through terrorist attacks or to attack it through drones. We have seen some rather strange, let's say, attacks by civilians in Russia, when they shoot down what appear to be drones, but usually hit their apartment buildings. Why? To create a certain information picture. They will do it on the ninth [May 9], that's for sure. That is, inside Russia,” Podoliak said.

He added that the Russian authorities will carry out provocations against their population in order to “maintain a high degree of such strange, delusional patriotism” so that Russians will go to kill Ukrainians. Podoliak recalled similar actions by the Russian authorities against the Chechen people and Dagestanis, who were blamed for the terrorist attacks committed by the special services.

According to Podoliak, dictator Putin's call for a “truce” shows that he wants a ceasefire only on the part of Ukraine. Instead, the number of attacks on Ukrainian territory has increased significantly in recent days.

“Look, in the month of April, I want us to pay attention to this, they have significantly increased their attacks on the civilian population. More than 850 people were killed by the Russians - civilians. So they are clearly hitting non-military targets. They know what kind of objects they are, they know that they are apartment buildings and so on and so forth. They used about 4,500 missiles and drones. Compared to the same period last year, this is a 43% increase in the number of strikes,” Podoliak emphasized.

As Ukrinform reported, the ATES guerrilla movement said on Monday that Russian special services are planning provocations for May 9, possible terrorist attacks against civilians in Russia and in the TOT of Ukraine.