Odessa has found itself at the center of a new political scandal. Hennadiy Trukhanov, who was elected mayor of Odessa three times in special elections in 2014, 2015, and 2020, has been stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship.  This followed several petitions to the President of Ukraine from city residents who accused the mayor of Odesa of holding pro-Russian views and of negligence that led to the deaths of people during heavy rains on September 30. 

On October
14, Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree stripping Hennadiy Trukhanov of his Ukrainian citizenship. He explained this decision by stating that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) had confirmed the existence of Russian passports held by “certain individuals,” a reference that included the mayor of Odesa. 

However, Trukhanov has not backed down and states that he will prove his case in court, will not leave the country, and is ready to defend his position even if he is arrested. 
 

UA.News has already provided a detailed account of Gennady Trukhanov’s biography and political career. Let’s focus on the history and legal aspects of his citizenship revocation, and why did the SBU unexpectedly discover that the mayor of Odesa held a Russian passport only in the fourth year of a full-scale investigation?

The
Case of Trukhanov’s
 Citizenship

The “Russian Trail” Discovered by Journalists
 

Investigative journalists have been writing about Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov’s Russian passport since 2016, following the Panama Papers leak, when tax evasion and money laundering schemes involving businesspeople and government officials were exposed on an international scale for the first time. At that time, reporters exposed links between the head of Odesa and offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, most of which were connected to construction projects in Odesa and Kyiv. It was established that Trukhanov provided an address in Sergiev Posad (Moscow Oblast, Russian Federation) for the registration of these companies.

Then, in 2018, “Slidstvo.Info” published a copy of the Odessa mayor’s Russian passport, noting that the Constitution of Ukraine prohibits dual citizenship. However, each time journalists inquired, the Security Service responded that it had found no evidence of Gennadiy Trukhanov holding Russian citizenship.

Journalists and civic activists returned to this topic time and again, even during the years of the full-scale invasion. In 2024, volunteer Serhiy Sternenko reported that the mayor of Odesa holds Russian citizenship and applied for a Russian bank card on February 9, 2022—a few days before the full-scale invasion. According to Sternenko, he obtained this information from “leaked Russian databases,” and it aligns with previous journalistic reports on the subject.

In response to these allegations, the mayor of Odesa stated that he did not and does not hold Russian citizenship, and that this information has been repeatedly verified by all relevant authorities. In one interview, he said: “I consider myself Ukrainian. I have always considered myself a Ukrainian, and I am a Ukrainian. Through my actions and my attitude toward my city and my country, I have convinced and proven to everyone that I am, without exaggeration, a patriot of my city and my country. Today, I am ready to defend my country.”
 

A New Twist in the Case
 

On September 24, a petition calling for the establishment of a military administration in Odesa was published on the website of the President of Ukraine, garnering over 25,000 signatures. The text emphasized that the city is of strategic importance as a key transportation and logistics hub located near areas of combat operations.

A series of rallies also took place in the city, including the “Money for the Armed Forces of Ukraine” rally, which was attended by veterans of the war with Russia. Participants claimed that Hennadiy Trukhanov is spreading pro-Russian sentiments and treating the military with contempt. According to the veterans, the mayor is implementing corrupt schemes to avoid mobilization and is not allocating sufficient funds to support the front lines.

However, the final straw that led to the “explosion” of public outrage was the tragedy on September 30, when Odesa proved unprepared for a torrential downpour; the streets were completely flooded, ten people drowned, and the city’s infrastructure was completely paralyzed. People were reminded of all the scandals involving construction projects in the city, as well as other corruption cases.

On October 13, 2025, a new petition appeared on the website of the President of Ukraine calling for the revocation of Ukrainian citizenship from Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov. Within 24 hours, it garnered over 27,000 signatures, exceeding the required 25,000. The petition drew the authorities’ attention to the fact that the mayor holds Russian citizenship, which, in the context of a full-scale war with Russia, “poses potential risks to national security and undermines citizens’ trust in local authorities.”

The reaction from the Presidential Office was immediate. The very next day, October 14, President Zelenskyy signed decrees revoking the Ukrainian citizenship of Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov, as well as that of former MP Oleg Tsarev and ballet dancer Serhiy Polunin.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) provided a detailed report on Trukhanov, confirming that the mayor of Odesa is a citizen of the Russian Federation and holds a valid foreign passport issued by the aggressor country. It turned out that the Ukrainian security service also had copies of the relevant documents.

In particular, it was reported that on December 15, 2015, following the start of the aggression against Ukraine and the temporary occupation of Crimea, Trukhanov received a 10-year Russian foreign passport, which remains valid to this day. As for his Russian internal passport, in 2017 Trukhanov’s representatives attempted to have it revoked and filed a petition with a Moscow Region court. However, the revocation or voluntary surrender of a passport “does not entail the loss of Russian Federation citizenship acquired by the individual on a legal basis.” Therefore, Trukhanov remains a citizen of the aggressor state and also has an identification code listed in the database of the “Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation.”

Civil society activists immediately reacted to the Office of the President’s decision to strip Trukhanov of his citizenship. “A slew

of inquiries to various agencies all concluded that Trukhanov does not hold Russian citizenship… In 2018, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) officially stated that the head of Odesa did not hold Russian citizenship. Some ten years later, it seems, official agencies have suddenly discovered that Trukhanov holds Russian citizenship,” commented investigative journalist Anna Babinets of “Slidstvo.Info.”

“I’m not going to stick up for Trukhanov. He’s a grown man, and if he wants to, he can go through the legal process of proving his innocence on his own. Then it will be embarrassing and awkward for many Ukrainian officials who set Ukraine up out of a desire to hand Odesa over to the military to let the ‘central’ mafia overcome the ‘local’ one. And it seems the people of Odesa will have to endure KGB-style rule once again. After the cavalry-style attack on Trukhanov, the “uniformed officials” will gain control of the city through the Civil-Military Administration, which is controlled by the SBU. All standards of balance and justice will shift to the office on Yevreyskaya Street—or wherever the powers that be are currently plotting. “We’ll have to forget about any semblance of justice in the courts or pressure on elected officials altogether,” wrote Yuriy Nikolov, a journalist and founder of the “Our Money” project.

Other individuals on the list of those stripped of citizenship
 

From 2014 through the end of September 2025, more than 300 people who held dual citizenship or had close ties to the Russian Federation and were deemed traitors and collaborators were stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship. The relevant presidential decrees were issued in batches targeting several individuals at once, with some of these cases drawing particular public attention. The majority of such cases occurred during Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidency.

For example, in 2021, Odesa businessmen Vadym Alperin, Araik Amirkhanyan, and Oleksandr Yerimichuk were stripped of their citizenship, and the National Security and Defense Council imposed sanctions against them for smuggling. Ukrainian passports were also revoked from People’s Deputies Vadym Rabinovich (OPZZh), Ihor Vasylkovskyi (“Servant of the People”), and businessmen Ihor Kolomoyskyi and Hennadiy Korban. At the end of 2022, several high-ranking clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) were stripped of their citizenship, and in 2025, the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), Onufriy, and several other bishops were also stripped of their citizenship.

President Zelenskyy’s latest decision was no exception: along with the current mayor of Odesa, Hennadiy Trukhanov, Ukrainian citizenship was revoked from traitor and fugitive former MP Oleg Tsarev and ballet dancer Sergei Polunin. Both openly supported the war against Ukraine. Polunin received a Russian passport back in 2018 and stated that “Russia has always been and remains a blessing to me. I am very happy to become a citizen of the Russian Federation.” Tsarev stated that in the event of a military defeat for the Russian Federation, “we will have to strike women and children with nuclear weapons.”

Developments
 

Meanwhile, Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov stated during a briefing that he would seek assistance from American lawyers. He reported that he has not yet been provided with official documents confirming the revocation of his Ukrainian citizenship.

“My lawyer, Oleksandr Lysak, is writing to all law enforcement agencies and the Office of the President to obtain official confirmation of this decree. Because we haven’t seen anything official yet. I will reach out to international human rights organizations and to other countries, particularly the United States of America, to see if I can find lawyers there to file a request, since we have no diplomatic relations (with Russia—ed.),” Trukhanov said.

According to Trukhanov, the documents published by the SBU are fake, and President Zelenskyy was simply misled. He also emphasized that he does not intend to leave the country and will continue working until the city council makes a decision in accordance with local self-government legislation.

Legal Aspects of the Trukhanov
 Case

The Trukhanov case is simply a legal disaster. It’s not just Pandora’s box; it’s a catastrophic disregard for any legal norms, says Oleksiy Shevchuk, a partner at the Barristers Law Firm.

According to him, there is no clear mechanism for holding a person accountable for holding two or three citizenships.

“The law on multiple citizenship has also failed to resolve this situation. But most importantly, numerous violations are occurring today—including procedural and timing violations, as well as violations of the general legal norms defined in legal theory regarding the acquisition and loss of citizenship.

Trukhanov could not have lost his Ukrainian citizenship at all, because he has held the position of mayor for a long time. Not only has he been vetted by all law enforcement agencies—he could not have been appointed to this position without such a vetting. But that is not the main point.

Trukhanov has done nothing that could currently serve as grounds for him to lose his citizenship. He has done nothing against the state, but even if he had, the state in which he was born and resides cannot deprive him of his citizenship. This is an inalienable right granted by birth.

“This is a legal disaster, because by that logic, we would have to strip all Ukrainians of their citizenship, since they were born and lived in the USSR,” Shevchuk emphasized.

The attorney also draws attention to the further legal and reputational consequences of such decisions for the state of Ukraine:

We are increasingly seeing decisions that restrict important human rights being made hastily, within a very short timeframe, bypassing standard judicial procedures—whether it involves revoking citizenship or imposing sanctions on an individual,” emphasizes Elvira Lazarenko, a partner at the “Barristers” Law Firm.

Lazarenko explained the legal specifics of such cases in greater detail:

“The procedure for terminating Ukrainian citizenship due to its loss within Ukraine is as follows:

• The territorial offices of the Migration Service prepare a submission regarding the individual’s loss of citizenship and forward it to the State Migration Service along with documents confirming the citizen’s voluntary acquisition of citizenship of another state (if this specific ground for loss of citizenship is being invoked), as well as a document confirming that the Ukrainian citizen will not become stateless as a result of losing Ukrainian citizenship. Most often, in their submissions, migration authorities cite information received from the Security Service of Ukraine confirming the fact of acquiring another citizenship.

• Subsequently, the State Migration Service reviews and approves the submission and forwards it to the Commission under the President of Ukraine on Citizenship Issues.

• After the Commission under the President of Ukraine on Citizenship reviews the submission, the Commission submits a proposal to the President of Ukraine to issue a decision terminating Ukrainian citizenship.

• The President of Ukraine issues a decree terminating citizenship, but it does not contain the grounds or justification for the decision and is not published in Ukraine’s official publications or on the President of Ukraine’s official website.

A person has the opportunity to learn exactly what facts formed the basis for the decision to terminate citizenship only during a court hearing in which they challenge the Presidential Decree on the termination of citizenship. During court proceedings, such information may be requested at the initiative of the plaintiff or by the court.”

Elvira Lazarenko notes that there are frequent cases where state agencies, in particular the Security Service of Ukraine, conceal information that served as the basis for the submission by immigration authorities. Alternatively, access to such information is restricted by classifications such as “For Official Use Only” or “State Secret,” which significantly limits the possibilities for defense and effectively closes the court proceedings to the public.

Examining international practices regarding the revocation of citizenship, a partner at the “Barristers” Law Firm emphasizes that every decision to revoke citizenship must be well-considered and substantiated, since the revocation of a person’s citizenship directly affects their personal and family circumstances, as well as their ability to pursue their professional activities—that is, it infringes upon fundamental rights guaranteed by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Expedited procedures are unlikely to allow for a thorough examination and consideration of both the individual’s situation and the circumstances that confirm or refute the grounds for loss of citizenship.

“In the European Union, for example, efforts are being made to harmonize citizenship laws; however, each country establishes its own rules and procedures at the national level. Procedures for the loss of citizenship exist in the legislation of European countries, and, depending on national regulations, decisions on the loss of citizenship may be made either by designated government agencies or through the courts.

Obviously, the time required to make such decisions in the latter case is significantly longer.

Most often, the compulsory revocation of citizenship is linked to national security considerations, when the state views an individual’s actions as a direct threat to public or national security. For example, in France, in response to the loss of life caused by numerous terrorist attacks, amendments were made to national legislation establishing the revocation of citizenship as a form of criminal punishment for committing terrorist acts. “In other words, revocation of citizenship on this basis is possible only following a court trial in which the individual is charged with terrorism and a guilty verdict becomes final,” explains Elvira Lazarenko.