theguardian | A Ukrainian presidential adviser has resigned after causing widespread anger when he suggested a Russian missile that killed dozens had been shot down by Ukraine.
45 people were killed in the south-central city of Dnipro when a Russian X-22 anti-ship ballistic missile hit an apartment block on Saturday. Rescuers called off the search on Tuesday with 20 people still missing.
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In comments to a YouTube channel , hours after the attack, Oleksiy Arestovych said the rocket had detonated after it had been downed by Ukrainian air defence forces.
“The rocket was shot down, it fell on the driveway, it exploded when it fell,” he told Feigin Live.
Hundreds of Ukrainian members of civil society and several prominent figures took to social media in the days afterwards, demanding the presidential administration sack Arestovych for making unverified statements. They said the comments aided Russian propaganda, which frequently portrays attacks as the fault of Ukraine’s armed forces.
In a statement, which did not address the remarks directly, Ukraine’s air defence forces said they did not currently have the technological capabilities to detect or shoot down ballistic missiles.
Arestovych refused to apologise for two days, blaming tiredness and stating that it was “one theory” put forward by a friend who happened to be near the scene. Then on Tuesday, Arestovych published a picture of his resignation letter on Facebook, stating that it was “an example of civilised behaviour” in light of his “fundamental mistake”.
A spokesperson for the president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Serhiy Nykoforov, confirmed that the resignation had been accepted. The former actor and politician was appointed as a freelance, non-staff adviser to the presidential administration in 2020.
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