Oleksiy Arestovich resigns as advisor to Zelensky’s office

Oleksiy Arestovich submitted his resignation from the position of external adviser to the office of the president of Ukraine.

“I want to show an example of what civilized behavior is: a fundamental error, then resignation,” he wrote on his social media, attaching a photo of his letter.

Arestovich was sharply criticized in Ukraine after his statement that a Russian missile that hit a residential building in Dnipro on January 14 was allegedly shot down by Ukrainian air defense forces. “It was shot down, it fell on an entryway. It exploded as it fell,” he said on Mark Feygin’s YouTube program. Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov demanded that Ukrainian intelligence respond to Arestovich, while Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleksiy Goncharenko announced a collection of signatures for his dismissal.

On January 17, Arestovich apologized for his remarks. “I made a serious mistake on the air. No matter the reason, the viewers heard it. I will from now on be stricter with the information I voice. I sincerely apologize to the victims and their relatives, the residents of Dnipro and everyone who was deeply hurt by my prematurely erroneous version of the cause of the Russian missile strike on a residential building,” he wrote on social media.