Today, as Ukraine is fighting this war against Russian invaders, all the TV channels in this country accessible to “common people” have combined into one TV thing called “marathon for the victory”. Having tapped all the TV channels on the cable, the local propaganda is voicing the official “point of view”. A popular speaker/presenter of this telethon, taking the place of Zelensky, is Alexey Arestovich. Many of the locals here see him as a fortunate man, who has access to the minds and souls of the people, as if by accident. We believe this figure to be far more ominous than he seems. We believe, that the Zelensky-type Ukraine has been seeking war with Russia, while it was Arestovich who set the path to it — a professional actor, an intelligence professional, and a leader of the racist “Brotherhood” organization. However, in order to unveil this idea we will have to look back in history, not so far away, and the specific features pertinent to Ukrainian society as it now.
The West has for a long time been turning a blind eye to the racist attitudes developing in Ukraine
It’s a been couple of weeks since the uproar caused by the release of the Peace Corps Guidance for Americans willing to help Ukraine in the field as volunteers. The Peace Corps is not yet sending its people to our country. In other projects, however, it has gained certain experience reflected in the form of internal guidance materials for the applicants to missions in Ukraine to prepare them for local specificities and challenges. The important section of these guidance documents is a warning of the fact, that Ukrainian society is to a large extent suffering from everyday racism. As such, volunteers were asked to be prepared to hear the N-word as well as other racists speech. Of course, it caused the expected reactions of rejection. Surely, there were soothing voices heard saying, that now, in the middle of Russia’s brutal invasion in Ukraine, it’s not the right time to keep hammering this issue. Alas, such considerations in one form or another had worked fine in previous era while resulting in the fact, that the problem has been snowballing through the decades.
In Ukraine they don’t really realize the extent to which the internal patriotic discourse has fused with racist thinking. It could be explained by the generally accepted opposition of Ukrainian patriotism to all Soviet ideology, including its formerly official internationalism. In one way or another, the internalized racism has permeated all tiers of Ukrainian society, including the acknowledged intellectuals. For instance, Levko Lukyanenko, a human rights activist, Soviet dissident, Hero of Ukraine, and Member of Parliament for several terms, without a trace of embarrassment suggested, that, since Ukraine has never invaded Africa, India, or the Far East, it is “not obliged to allow in negroes and Indians”. Moreover, he said, that a Ukrainian woman married to a black person should leave the country so as not to taint the people’s blood.
Yuri Andrukhovych, a writer, recipient of numerous awards, indulged in a bitter irony towards Ukrainians, who don’t cherish the Ukrainian language, comparing them to African students diligently studying the state language. As he put it: “since Africans are breeding better Ukrainians”, he pinned his hopes on them to preserve the Ukrainian language. It is very unlikely that he’d thought he said something at all offensive.
Organized racism in Ukraine
There are organizations in Ukraine that directly adhere to the ideology of white supremacy. A lot of them, such as “National Corps”, “Azov,” or “C14” have been in the spotlight of world media outlets, including the BBC. Oftentimes the worldview of members of such organizations is eclectic and not particularly deep. These organizations, the existence of which was one of the pretexts for the Russian aggression against Ukraine, are mainly focused on committing violent acts and forming paramilitary groups. Sometimes they exist under the patronage of certain political figures as was shown in investgations by Bellingcat.
Ideology is just a backdrop for those involved, and it mostly serves as a cosplay decoration to justify the use of symbols popular among white supremacists. Most of these organizations were established in the two thousand tens, while their explosive growth began after Maidan’s victory and the start of the conflict in Donbas in 2014. Since they have been massively infiltrating law enforcement structures, where their mission was to guard Ukraine against the Russian aggression (while purposefully gaining combat experience), it was a usual practice to turn a blind eye to their punky little pranks. As Zelensky once said in the interview on Fox News, “they are just what they are”.
The “Brotherhood” National Christian Network and its hopes for the war
“Brotherhood” of Dmitry Korchinsky stands alone. The “order” type organization has been around for at least 20 years. Unlike the above mentioned organizations, “Brotherhood” laid a bet on philosophy and ideology. Its activity was not focused on public politics. Although “Brotherhood” was registered as a political party, Korchinsky has openly been laughing at the usual democratic institutions. When his party won the toss for the right to establish and arrange election commissions, he sold the received seats to other political parties, — a fact that he was publicly bragging about. In essence, establishing “Brotherhood” in 1999 was the result of Korchinsky leaving his own creation – UNA-UNSO, the oldest nationalist party, caused by disagreements with his party members, who at that time wanted to put a stronger effort into traditional parliamentary political struggle. Even the “Brotherhood” official website (where it is said, that this is the party of Jesus Christ) is purposefully left unfinished and has not been updated for more than a decade, although its hosting has been maintained throughout these years.
Meanwhile, in today’s Kiev it is hard to find a cultural and public figure younger than 55, who in one way or another has never cooperated with “Brotherhood”. The forms of cooperation differ – from interactions on political agendas to collaboration with Oksana, Korchinsky’s wife, as a producer, art director, philanthropist, or just as an influencer in bohemian circles. Therefore, through the projects, affiliated with the Korchinsky family, there has been a remarkable transformation of the Russian speaking population, and also the, Russian cultural media of Kiev intellectuals into first a tolerance and then a loyalty to the most radical doctrines of Ukrainian nationalism. Although these doctrines were aimed against this cultural medium, the situation went to such extremes, that a Kiev-based cultural figure would not be able to fulfill themselves professionally without a green light from the “Brotherhood” structures.
It would be a mistake, however, to take “Brotherhood” for an exclusive circle of intellectuals or a society of the like-minded. The “Brotherhood” members at different times were eagerly volunteering to take part in combat outside Ukraine on different sides of conflicts. In particular, in the early ‘90s Dmitry Korchinsky, then a head of the UNA-UNSO militant wing, fought in Transdniestria on the side of pro-Russian separatists, explaining that policy by the necessity of protecting Ukrainian residents of the Dniester’s left bank. Although Korchinsky made a lot of contacts with Russian ultra-rightists during this war, he’s never been a friend of Russia. Around the same time Korchinsky, together with his “sworn brothers”, fought in Abkhazia on the Georgian side opposing the interests of Russia. Somewhat later they fought in Chechnya also on the side of separatists having been openly against Russia. According to the media of that time, some of them were killed by their Chechen allies for a blood feud, because the Chechen troops had been fighting in Abkhazia against Georgia, protecting their Muslim brothers. Many of the “Brotherhood” members were too young to participate in that series of conflicts, however, the Virgin Mary battalion formed by Korchinsky, fought in Donbas in 2014.
It would be naïve to suppose that such activity could pass unnoticed by security services. Dmitry Korchinsky has never had serious issues with Ukrainian authorities, well, in fact, they have always been covering for him. Some reports state, that UNA-UNSO, and later – “Brotherhood”, were merely the projects of the Ukrainian secret police: from the start in late ‘80s – in order to scare citizens off the national-democratic movements, while in times of Ukraine’s independence – in order to push the policy of Ukrainization, as well as to establish military-political collaboration with radicals from other CIS countries. But history teaches us that the relationship between radicals and the state is not built on the Dog and Its Master principle (especially, taking into account the fact, that dogs manipulate their masters everyday). Moreover, radicals have something that security services are lacking badly – ideology and faith in their righteousness. This gives them a capacity to actively form their own discourse in the society.
The most important task, as seen by “Brotherhood”, is to develop and implement a specific philosophical doctrine, one of the outcomes of which is the ideology of white supremacy. There are periodic addresses by the leader of the organization posted on the web; he publishes books with titles like The Shining Path and The Aesthetics of Beggary, which explain philosophical readings dedicated to certain aspects of mystical spiritual development.
The core point of the “Brotherhood” doctrine is idealistic visions of European culture, which, according to them, is rooted in the image of a citizen of the classical Greek city-state. Such a citizen has to be both a warrior-philosopher and a “pirate”, said Korchinsky in his talk on a YouTube video of 2020, titled “Why Ukraine needs philosophy. European civilization is unique.” In the course of this talk, Korchinsky stated, that particular heights of the human spirit are only accessible to descendants European culture. According to Korchinsky, the notions of “The Freedom”, “The Truth”, and “The Beauty” are inaccessible to non-Europeans, such as the Chinese or Japanese. The legacy of Nietzsche and Spengler is easily guessed in those ideas. Korchinsky, following their path, is troubled by the decline of the West due to the effeminacy of Europeans, and their focus on material comforts and personal well-being. The same ideas motivated Pavlo Lapshin, the Ukrainian programmer, who prepared series of terrorist acts in Birmingham in 2013. He explained his motive by a wish to instigate racial wars in the United Kingdom.
In 2001 Korchinsky made an attempt to run as the head of the “Kiev fortress” electoral bloc under a slogans against UE plans. Those plans supposedly included resettlement of 8 million Afghan and Central Asian refugees in Ukraine. After a total electoral debacle, Korchinsky came to fully realize that the average Ukrainian citizen was too shortsighted about long-term EU plan, therefore, he had to come up with some other strategy.
In order to serve the great cause of reviving the European spirit, Dmitry Korchinsky sees war as a means to an end. In the YouTube video, titled “A war with Russia is good,” recorded a month before the Russian invasion, Korchinsky stated that he hoped the invasion would be real. According to Korchinsky, an invasion would help eliminate the Fifth Column in Ukraine, wake Ukrainians from their sleep, and at last open the spiritual forces of the people. He also rejoiced in the fact that Zelensky was not at all reacting to warnings from his western partners.
“Brotherhood” may have seemed to be a marginal sect having no tangible influence on Ukrainian society in the past. Although Korchinsky has an extensive network of contacts within Ukraine’s media and cultural fields, these assets seems to not be enough to implement the objectives of his organization. Recently however, the situation has changed, since Alexey Arestovich, the number two in “Brotherhood” behind Korchinsky, is now a principal communicator between the government and the Ukrainian people. Today he ranks second after Zelensky in popularity and recognizability. His media and ideological influence cannot be overemphasized.
Arestovich’s way to people’s hearts and minds
Alexey Arestovich holds no significant position in government; he’s just on the payroll as an advisor to the Office of the President. However, nowadays he holds everyday video briefings, provides ideological guidance, comforts and cheers the viewers up. His videos are watched everyday literally by millions. He is also coordinating the official propaganda machinery. Looks like he’s in the position he’s been desiring his whole life. In fact, Arestovich has become Zelensky’s manager in ruling the country at war. However feeble the figure of Arestovich might seem to representatives of former political generations, this one combines in himself a war expert, PR and philosophy guru, and thus the main communicator not only for society, but also at the behind closed doors meetings with participation of the president.
The main “tranquilizer” for the Ukrainians has never been afraid of publicity. During his career he has accumulated an impressive list of positions and roles, while the latter should be taken literally. Having dropped out of the biology faculty of Kiev National University, Arestovich became a standup comedian in the popular show Black Square. He worked there for more than a decade while having played roles in several movies. He even played a female character in the comedy film Don’t Worry, I’m Here. Moreover, Arestovich acted as the invited expert psychologist in daytime talk shows (he obtained a degree in the Avessalom Podvodnyi psychology college, where he studied from 2003 to 2010). Features in commercials, personal psychological trainings and consultancy are also included on his resume.
All this has provided a smokescreen for the other, less public side of this man. In our patriarchal society, a male thespian dressed in women’s clothes is rarely taken seriously. The critics of his activity have seldom dug deeper. For them he’s just that female character in that movie, a showman, a blogger who under president Zelensky took this chance to get closer to the level of political rule and became close to the president.
During his participation in the Black Square show, Alexey Arestovich entered the Odessa Military Institute of Land Forces where he obtained a degree in military translation. After that, for 6 years he served as an officer in the Intelligence Branch of the Armed Forces, working as the Directorate general of Intelligence under Igor Smeshko, then the head of SBU (Security Service of Ukraine). According to Arestovich, he prepared analytical reports that were presented to the higher political management of the country. According to his story, in 2005 he left the intelligence position with a scandal, when under president Yushchenko there were random people appearing in high positions in the security services. As Arestovich put it, it was degrading, when prominent professionals were forced to report to the former sugar magnate. Due to his income as a public figure he could afford to reject a modest salary of a civil servant. Generally, in a lot of interviews Alexey Arestovich kept emphasizing that the main problem of Ukrainians is that they are “corrupt”. As he mentioned in the extensive interview with Roman Skrypin, this problem could mean the defeat of Ukraine in the existential battle with Russia.
After resignation from intelligence, Alexey Arestovich joined “Brotherhood” of Dmitry Korchinsky, immediately becoming the right-hand man of the head of the organization. In the same year of 2005, he visited Russia together with Korchinsky to take part in joint projects with Russian nationalists. Particularly close contacts were established with Alexander Dugin, the Russian far-right philosopher and mystic, who since early ‘90s in Russia has been popularizing the ideas of various fascist philosophers such as Rene Guenon and Julius Evola. There had been reports of the long-standing friendship between Korchinsky and Dugin before this date. It is possible, that this meeting influenced Arestovich’s decision to obtain an additional education in “Theology” at Catholic Theological College of St. Thomas Aquinas, famous for the highest level of training provided in the field of philosophy and social sciences. Benefitting from that education, Alexey Arestovich has acquired the skill of holding high level discussions with professional philosophers and giving lectures in modern theology.
The views of Dugin and his entourage are largely consonant with the ideas Korchinsky adheres to. After the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protests in Moscow Russian authorities irreversibly embarked upon the path of right-wing anti-liberalism, and therefore Dugin’s works came in handy as Vladimir Putin, at somebody’s suggestion, began to cite Ivan Ilyin, the Russian fascist philosopher. By circa 2007 Korchinsky alienated himself from his Russian colleagues and began to tell the story of how he had been trying to use them as opposition to Putin’s rule.
Since 2008, Arestovich began predicting annexation of Crimea by Russia and the phased invasion. Ex post facto those predictions are now seeming to be unbelievably precise. Last month an interview with Arestovich dated 2019 gained a new round of popularity, where he enthusiastically was telling about a war with Russia to begin in 2022 at the latest. In fact, the first phase of intense fighting has coincided with that analysis. At the same time in a YouTube video titled “Ukrainians, unpack your bug-out bags”, released a month before the war, he reassured the interviewer, telling of a Ukrainian air defense system insurmountable for the Russians to invade.
Manipulator and professional liar
Alexey Arestovich, however, has never had any limits in consciously misleading his audience, — something he’s not once admitted to. From his notorious post “I’ve been lying a lot to you” to the latest statement where he, on behalf of the authorities, persuaded Ukrainians, that no Russian invasion was possible, all the while knowing of the inevitability of the invasion in the shortest term. According to him, he did all that to prevent the population from a massive unorganized exodus from the country creating chaos, which would’ve been in the way of combat preparations.
Having combined a sharp intellect, experience in physiological influence, propaganda, and acting, bolstered by corresponding education, Alexey Arestovich has an obvious skill of shaping the opinion of other people as would a sculptor with clay. At the same time, he’s not ashamed of revealing the secrets of his craft. In the abovementioned interviews he went on about a strategy of influencing president Zelensky (“he’s afraid of confronting the real world, and he feels secure only when on stage”) and society (“first, you have to frighten the people, then, make them feel guilty, and, at the end, encourage them for the “right” decision they made upon your demand”). He does all that simply because he has no respect for mental capacities of his addressees, — the thing he’s been in one way or another hinting about repeatedly. In the long run, what Arestovich is really thinking of comes out in the form of his reservations, carefully refined metaphors, references, and even jokes. Thus, he once in a while quotes his friend, Dmitry Korchinsky, while commenting on the possibility of Afghan refugees coming into Ukraine, — “a burden of a white man”, ironically. He compares Ukrainian society to a blend of “Cossacks”, meaning warriors and heroes, and “swineherds”, meaning those whose interests in life are confined to material gain. These are the motives that are closely related to the “Brotherhood” ideology. It looks like it is something he truly believes in.
Endgame of Arestovich
It’s possible, that the point of no return on the road to war was the moment that Alkexey Arestovich was appointed to vote as a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the negotiating group on the Donbas settlement. As with the “Azov” battalion fighters, a lot of decision makers would have turned a blind eye to the Arestovich stunts, if it would have resulted in a lead for Ukraine to the fastest possible peace in dignity. The problem is, judging from the ideology “Brotherhood” is adhering to, a peaceful and happy Ukraine is bound to a spiritual death. This explains the failure of western democracy in trying to prevent the Russian-Ukrainian war from happening through the compromises.
For Arestovich, as well as for his ideological brothers on the Russian side, his own country would be preferable as a scattered territory in a state of a permanent war. Such a state, as the like-minded people would say, wcould facilitate the emergence of a people of strength and honesty, not burdened by an instinct of depredation. Yet the more important thing is that all of this should ward off migrants from Asia and Africa, the ones whom the “national-christian brothers” do not want to see here. Today nearly 5 million women and children have left Ukraine – the situation is ideal. Ukraine is becoming a longed-for “Zaporozhian Sich”, a country of warriors equipped from the outside. When the external support wanes – the world is not ready to carry on with this war forever — the Cossacks, let me remind you, always took what they wanted.
Today Ukrainians have formed a world- wide network to collect funds for the Ukrainian army. However, this network is being managed by the Arestovich-minded people, motivated by Arestovich, and lead into the battle by Arestovich. And their plans to build a white spiritual state are not confined to Ukraine only.
