President Zelenskyy removes Odesa’s mayor’s Ukrainian citizenship.

Ukrainian  – (Special Correspondent / Web Desk) –  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revoked Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov of Ukrainian citizenship following claims that he holds a Russian passport.

Instead, the Ukrainian president has nominated a military administration to manage the country’s largest Black Sea port city, which has a population of approximately one million people.”The Ukrainian citizenship of the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, has been suspended,” Ukraine’s SBU security service stated on Tuesday via the Telegram messaging app, citing a Zelenskyy directive.
The SBU accused the mayor of having a “valid international passport from the aggressor country.”

Ukraine prohibits its citizens from also holding citizenship in Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the move against Trukhanov could see him deported from the country.

In a post on social media, Zelenskyy said he had held a meeting with the head of the SBU, which had reported on “countering Russian agent networks and collaborators in the front-line and border regions, as well as in the south of our country”.

The SBU chief verified that certain persons had Russian citizenship, and corresponding judgments have been prepared.  “I have signed the decree,” Zelenskyy announced.

“Far too many security issues in Odesa have remained unanswered for far too long,” the president stated, according to sources, without providing specifics.

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Trukhanov, a former member of parliament, has been mayor of Odesa since 2014.  He has constantly denied having Russian citizenship, an allegation that has followed him throughout his political career.

“I have never received a Russian passport. I am a Ukrainian citizen,” Trukhanov stressed in a video message posted on Telegram following the announcement of his citizenship revocation.

Trukhanov said he would “continue to perform the duties of elected mayor” as long as possible and that he would take the case to court.

Images of a Russian passport allegedly belonging to Trukhanov have been shared widely on social media in Ukraine.

Once considered a politician with pro-Russian leanings, Trukhanov pivoted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and has publicly condemned Moscow while focusing on defending Odesa and aiding the Ukrainian army.

According to Reuters, Zelenskyy also withdrew two other people’s Ukrainian citizenships.
Local media outlets The Kyiv Independent identified the two as Ukrainian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin, an outspoken supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and former Ukrainian lawmaker and now alleged Russian collaborator Oleg Tsaryov.

Polunin, who sports a large tattoo of Putin on his chest, was born in southern Ukraine but obtained Russian citizenship in 2018. He supported Russia’s 2022 invasion and, earlier in 2014, backed Russia’s annexation of Crimea, where he lived and worked.

In July, Zelenskyy revoked the citizenship of Metropolitan Onufriy, the head of the formerly Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church.