“The West wants to bring troops into Ukraine to prevent a civil war during the elections,” says Arestovych

Western countries are planning to deploy their peacekeepers to Ukraine not as a provocation against Russia, but to prevent a civil war—especially during the election period. Another goal of bringing in foreign contingents would be to monitor violations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces along the front line.

This was stated by former Presidential Office adviser Oleksii Arestovych on the YouTube channel of blogger Oleksandr Shelest.

“Why are troops being brought onto the territory of Ukraine? This is not against Russia. They plan to bring them in to prevent a civil war. These are stabilization forces like those deployed, for example, in Bosnia. The West understands very well the prospects of postwar states that have 1.5 million unaccounted automatic weapons and a million veterans, a glaring absence of the rule of law, screaming political and social contradictions, and very few resources. So they need stabilization forces. It’s just that no one will call them that—everyone will say it’s against Russia,” the former adviser to Bankova explained.

“What can 10,000 or 15,000 troops save you from Russia? Nothing. They are nothing in and of themselves. 150–200 thousand—yes, that’s a contingent. Even 50 thousand isn’t a contingent. Ten to fifteen thousand is so that patrols can walk around the Central Election Commission, so there can be observers on the demarcation line, so they can record violations by the Ukrainian side first and foremost—because they simply don’t believe Ukraine, for you to understand,” Arestovych added.

In his view, in Ukraine “all the prerequisites for a civil war have been created,” and there is a threat of “major street unrest in Odesa, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Lviv,” while a Western contingent on the Right Bank of the Dnipro would reduce the likelihood of such events.

There is also a danger of a split among the military.

“This is, for example, a combination of Biletsky and Budanov as one part of the силовики (security bloc) against, for example, Zaluzhnyi and the career officers who join him,” he believes.

“The way the Third Corps (formed by former members of ‘Azov’ — Ed.) treats career officers and the moral code it promotes forces career officers to unite and consolidate around Zaluzhnyi,” Arestovych explained.

“When some Heroes of Ukraine will have a strong temptation to shoot, toss a grenade, or fly an FPV drone into another Hero of Ukraine’s forehead, they’ll start doing it. French, Turkish, British troops accidentally stationed near city election commissions, patrols that walk around—surely they will stabilize the situation at least somewhat. And it won’t be as easy to kill allies, right, even for the most desperate Heroes of Ukraine,” the former adviser said.

He also believes that a stabilizing factor is needed so that Ukraine fulfills its part of any peace deal.

“Everything that happened during the Minsk process convinced us of only one thing: some desperate Ukrainian heroes are very prone to shooting when they shouldn’t, violating agreements. Not only the damned Russian provocateurs—our heroes sometimes can as well. So observers and troops will be needed so that the Ukrainian side doesn’t violate the reached peace agreement under реваншистские (revanchist) slogans,” Arestovych said.

He thinks Russia is also interested in foreign presence.

“Russia will be the first of everyone else to know that this is to prevent a civil war in Ukraine. Therefore it will calmly agree if the relevant agreements are reached—and judging by everything, they are quite close,” the former adviser to Bankova stated.

As a reminder, Russia has publicly spoken out strongly against the deployment of Western contingents on Ukrainian territory. There is no information about any change in its position on this issue.