Oleksiy Arestovych, a former adviser to President Zelenskyi's office and one of the most important spokesmen for the authorities at the beginning of the war, has been abroad for six months. But it is still not known exactly how he left Ukraine?
"He somehow left", - this is how Arestovych answered the question of journalist Anna Olitska how he managed to leave. According to him, the circumstances of the border crossing are a "state secret" that cannot be disclosed. At the same time, the ex-politician assured that he had not violated Ukrainian legislation.
He currently lives in New York and says he is "working with representatives of the American political establishment" to promote aid to Ukraine.
On February 1, NGL.Media published an article about the circumstances of Arestovych's departure. The mass media, citing a source in the border service, reported that the ex-adviser of the OP allegedly left Ukraine on September 4, 2023 based on a letter from the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense.
"In general, since the invasion of the Russians in February 2022, in addition to the two mentioned cases, Arestovych traveled abroad seven more times on other grounds - for example, on the basis of the decisions of the head of the DPSU, as an adviser to the president's office, etc. All these trips lasted no longer than nine days," the article said.
What do GUR and border guards say
The Main Directorate of Intelligence and the Border Service publicly denied the information made public by journalists.
"Attention is a fake! The information about crossing the border and leaving Ukraine by a person named Oleksiy Arestovych on September 4, 2023, allegedly on the basis of a letter from the State Administration of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, published by NGL.media, is not true," the State Administration of Ukraine said in a statement. The office denies that it provided letters or any other documents for going abroad.
Andriy Demchenko, the spokesman of the Border Guard Service, told VBS Ukraine that Arestovych did not leave Ukraine based on the letter from the State Government.
He noted that usually the border agency does not disclose information about border crossings by citizens. But considering the fact that NGL.media refers to "sources in the border service", it decided to respond publicly to the situation with Arestovych.
However, the border service does not specify exactly how the OP's ex-advisor left the country.
NGL.media released a document that appears to be an extract from a border crossing database. It states that on September 4 and May 9, 2023, he left Ukraine "on the basis of a letter from the GUR", and on March 22 - by the decision of the head of the border guard service. At the same time, the document states that on May 20, 2022, Arestovych left for Romania through the "Orlivka" checkpoint (Odesa region), and the reason is "Advisor (that's right - in Russian) to the President of Ukraine." At that time, he was a freelance adviser to the office of the president, not the head of state.
PHOTO AUTHOR, NGL.MEDIA
Arestovych himself sarcastically commented on the investigation into the circumstances of his departure on Facebook.
He shared a link to the news about the "refutation of GUR" and wrote "I live among aquarium fish", adding 5 emoticons.
It should be noted that the head of the Main Directorate of Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, in an interview with Liga.Net in December 2022, confirmed that Arestovych served in the GUR.
"Once upon a time, as far as I remember, he served here. It was a long time ago, we need to upload the data. As far as I remember, yes," said the head of military intelligence.
Who is Arestovich?
48-year-old Oleksiy Arestovich used to be one of the most famous members of Volodymyr Zelenskyi's . But after his release in early 2023, he began to criticize the policy of the Ukrainian president.
It is known from Arestovych's numerous interviews that in the 1990s he dropped out of the biological faculty of Kyiv University named after Shevchenko and became interested in the theater - from 1993 to 2010 he played in the improvisation studio "Black Square".
In 1998, he said, he graduated from the Institute of Ground Forces in Odesa, where he received a diploma of a military translator in English.
In 2005, he resigned from the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and then appeared in Ukrainian political life as the deputy leader of the "Brotherhood" Dmytro Korchynskyi and an opponent of the "Orange Revolution", which brought Viktor Yushchenko and Yulia Tymoshenko to power.
In 2008, Arestovych said in an interview with dsnews that it was at this time that he resigned from the Department of Strategic Research of the Ministry of Defense.
In 2005, together with Korchinsky in Moscow, Arestovych took part in a press conference at the "RIA Novosti" agency with the ideologist of Russian Eurasianism and imperialism Oleksandr Dugin.
Later, he stated that he was in Russia as an employee of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense.
After 2014, Arestovych began to gain popularity as a blogger who comments on military issues.
At the same time, he became the founder of the Apeiron school of thought.
According to Arestovych, in 2018-2019 he was also a contract worker of the Armed Forces, served in the 72nd mechanized brigade, allegedly carried out "33 combat sorties" behind the front line in Donbas.
Arestovych's rapprochement with the new Ukrainian government took place in 2020.
In October 2020, Leonid Kravchuk appointed Oleksiy Arestovych as an adviser on information policy and speaker of the Ukrainian delegation in the tripartite contact group, which the ex-president of Ukraine headed at that time. And in December, the head of the president's office, Andriy Yermak, made him a freelance adviser.
In January 2023, Arestovych was dismissed from President Zelenskyi's office.
The resignation was, in particular, connected with his unconfirmed statements about how the tragedy of a rocket hitting a house in Dnipro took place.
