The Arestovych Case and the Question of Power

Domestic political struggles point the way toward post-war rebirth

KYIV, UKRAINE - 2022/10/10: Adviser to Office of President of Ukraine Oleksii Arestovych seen at the site of the explosion of Russian missiles after a Russian missile attack in central Kyiv. (Photo by Oleksii Chumachenko/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Boris Kagarlitsky

Translated by Dan Erdman

On January 17, Oleksii Arestovych, adviser to the office of the President of Ukraine, resigned in Kyiv. This event, which immediately caused a wave of commentary in Russia and Ukraine, was preceded by two days of heated discussions and mutual accusation from opponents and supporters of the popular politician.

It all started with an incident on January 14 in the city of Dnipro (formerly Dnepropetrovsk, formerly Yekaterinoslav). A strike from a Russian missile caused the entrance of an apartment building to collapse, burying at least 40 civilians under debris. Many families were left homeless. Commenting on these tragic events in the evening of the same day, on the popular YouTube channel Feigin LIVE, Arestovych said that the rocket fell on the house after it had been shot down by the Ukrainian air defense.

Of course, Arestovych did not pull this version of events out of thin air. Only a few hours before his conversation with Mark Feigin, similar statements had appeared on both the Russian and Ukrainian internet. However, it was Arestovych statement that caused a political scandal. In response, the official channels of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (APU) insisted that the country’s air defense did not have the means to destroy this type of missile.

Nationalist politicians launched a campaign against Arestovych, demanding his resignation. He was accused of trying to “discredit the Armed Forces of Ukraine” (literally repeating the same odious verbiage used to persecute dissidents in Russia). Mayor of Dnipro Boris Filatov said that Arestovich had deliberately misinformed his listeners. Meanwhile, the émigré Russian channel Mediazona found several UAF reports claiming to have successfully intercepted missiles of the exact type that hit the house in the Dnieper.

Arestovych did not challenge the official version and admitted his mistake. The next day, on Feigin’s broadcast, he publicly apologized to the residents of Dnipro, but said that he would not apologize to his opponents or to the initiators of the persecution. He then resigned from the post of adviser to the office of the president.

The resignation was accepted with surprising ease. We must not forget that Arestovych is one of the most popular people in the country, second only to President Volodymyr Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny. Among the president’s current team, he remained by a wide margin the most popular figure; his videos analyzing the military-political situation have drawn tens of millions of views both in Ukraine and in Russia, where he also has a huge number of loyal viewers and supporters. The evening broadcasts of Feigin and Arestovych have been compared to the famous TV program Good Night, Kids, which families in the USSR and later in Russia showed children every night before bed for many years. Now, many adults in both countries admit that they cannot fall asleep until they watch Feigin’s show. At first, Russian official television regularly attacked Arestovych, presenting him as the embodiment of all conceivable vices; they then began to quote him, especially when he allowed himself to be critical of the Ukrainian authorities or the military. According to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the infamous Wagner PMC, YouTube has not yet been blocked in Russia simply because the Presidential Administration is used to watching Feigin and Arestovych every evening.

It is not surprising that such popularity has earned Arestovych many envious people and enemies, including among the ranks of the Ukrainian government itself. This has become especially pronounced after an interview with the well-known Kyiv journalist Dmitry Gordon, in which he announced his intention to put forward his candidacy for president after the war. True, he did clarify that he would do this only if incumbent President Volodymyr Zelensky decided not to run for a second term. But in any case, this raised Arestovich’s status as a political figure into the first magnitude.

And here we are talking not only about envy, but also about the threat that the former adviser to the presidential office posed to the old Ukrainian elites. The anti-war Russian channel NEVOINA, organized by left-wing activists in the spring of 2022, emphasizes the struggle between two tendencies in Ukrainian politics:

“Regardless of his real institutional position, Arestovich personifies a moderate line towards the citizens of Russia, often disavowing the most odious statements of Ukrainian ‘hawks.’”

According to the channel, “the prospects for the anti-war movement in Russia depend on the internal Russian situation, but it is also obvious that the position broadcast by the Ukrainian authorities in relation to Russian citizens in general and the anti-war part of society in particular is also of great importance. And in this sense, with the departure of Arestovich, with all the ambiguous attitude towards him, the situation seems to become even more unfavorable.”

Of course, this is not only about the attitude towards Russia and Ukrainian citizens. In domestic Ukrainian affairs, Arestovich also took a moderate position, speaking out against attempts to eradicate the Russian language, and against a ban on unemployed Ukrainian men of military age traveling abroad to work (a very acute problem in a situation where a significant part of the country’s economy has been paralyzed by war, and where many enterprises have been destroyed and jobs lost). In the public statements of Arestovich, the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine found hope for a change in cultural policy and for the provision of real equality. He was not shy in his rhetoric when he criticized the ideology of the extreme right, and spoke about the provincial nature of Ukrainian nationalism and about the problems of the Ukrainian state in similarly harsh terms; all of these, he said, should be eliminated by radical reforms after the war.

Unfortunately, in Ukraine, and indeed everywhere else, politicians easily forget their beautiful promises when they come to power. Even our hero himself has recently begun to soften his position, clearly yielding to pressure from the right. But one way or another, at this moment, the figure of Arestovich for millions of people both in Russia and in Ukraine embodies the hope that after the end of the war changes will come, and the two peoples will be able to restore normal relations (naturally, after the collapse of the regime of Vladimir Putin). It is significant that support for the disgraced politician was expressed not only by many Russian-speaking Ukrainians, but also by those who spoke and wrote in the state language.

The Arestovich case shows that although hostilities are not yet over, the struggle for the post-war structure of Ukraine is now unfolding. The same struggle is quietly stirring in Russia. Putin’s imminent defeat marks the beginning of a new era for both countries. And it doesn’t look like the wait is too long.