Former adviser to the head of the Ukrainian president’s office Arestovych resumed fundraising for the Armed Forces. Ukrainian soldiers called it fake

Former adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine Oleksiy Arestovych, who is under sanctions from the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), has resumed fundraising for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) after a long break.

A scandal erupted immediately afterward, as the military stated that he is not raising anything for them.

In one of his recent broadcasts, Arestovych announced that he was resuming collections for the needs of the AFU and was raising 185,000 hryvnias (about €3,792) for a mobile water purification system for field conditions. According to the former presidential adviser, the fundraiser was intended for the drone systems battalion of military unit A5002 (the 158th Brigade of the AFU).

However, the 158th Brigade denied any cooperation with Arestovych.

“This is fake! The unit does not cooperate with Arestovych. What motives he has for spreading this information are unclear for now. In any case, we urge you not to support this fundraiser, not to transfer money to the specified accounts, so as not to be deceived by fraudsters and not to compromise the AFU,” the brigade said in a statement.

As a reminder, back in May Arestovych announced that he was stopping fundraising for the AFU and would only collect money for humanitarian purposes. The fundraiser for the 158th Brigade was the first military-related collection he announced on his Telegram channel after that statement.