An interview with Oleksiy Arestovych, military adviser to Ukraine’s presidency

his bodyguard first, but for a man so central to the war effort, Oleksiy Arestovych has a surprisingly light security footprint. “Some people get scared,” he says, “but I get excited by the opportunity. It’s .” Two months into fighting, the 46-year-old is a celebrity in any Ukrainian home with a TV set. His sardonic daily military updates have calmed the nation during some of its darkest hours, and even raised a few chuckles. Some describe him as a national antidepressant; others a sex symbol; detractors call him an accidental player, or even an impostor.Mr Arestovych’s journey to the war bunker is as improbable as that of his boss, President Volodymyr Zelensky—moving from jobbing actor and self-help psychologist to a place at the table defining his country’s history. He has a military-intelligence background, and fought in Donbas twice after Russia’s first invasion, in 2014. But he is best known for eccentric prophecies that occasionally turn out to be right. In 2019 he predicted a major, multi-pronged Russian invasion of Ukraine by 2022. He was correct down to the grimmest of details.