Advisor to Ukraine’s President Says Russia Is Preparing a ‘Zerg Rush’

An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia might be preparing a Zerg rush for Ukraine, using a term from the real-time strategy game Starcraft to describe deadly developments in a previously unimaginable land war in Europe. Oleksiy Arestovych went on to a chat show hosted by disbarred Russian lawyer and opposition political figure Mark Feygin to discuss the state of the war on April 30.

“I always put myself in the position of the enemy, so I thought—there are some signs that they are preparing a Zerg rush for us,” Arestovych said. “Do you know this term?”

Feygyn said he had no idea what a Zerg rush was. “It’s a computer game, it has a nation—Zergs, insects,” Arestovych explained. “And since earthings and another people have advanced technology, these just throw in masses.”

The translations come from @mdmitri91 on Twitter, who has been translating various things related to Russia’s war in Ukraine. In the video, you can clearly hear Arestovych say “Zerg Rush” and the term also appears in the description of the video on YouTube.

In war, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction and rumor from truth. But it does appear that the war is not going well for Russia. It has lost hundreds of pieces of equipment, tens of thousands of soldiers, and multiple generals. As the war has ground on, Moscow has pulled its troops back from Kyiv and has refocused its efforts on the breakaway regions in the east. 

The war is changing and everyone is waiting for what comes next but it’s hard to know if it’ll be a “Zerg Rush” or what that would even look like in a practical sense. Arestovych is a political provocateur with a long history of controversial statements. During the war, he has broadcast military updates that have gained popularity for their dry humor.