Trukhanov appeals against house arrest after Odesa tragedy: what is known
4 November 17:28
Former Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov has filed an appeal against the court’s decision to impose round-the-clock house arrest in a case of official negligence.
This was announced by his lawyer in a comment to Suspilne, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
The date for consideration of the appeal has not yet been determined.
What Trukhanov is suspected of
on October 31, the court imposed a pre-trial restraint on Trukhanov in the case of the deaths during the flooding in Odesa in late September.
According to the investigation, the negligence of city services led to the deaths of 10 people, including a family of five, during heavy rains.
Several other city council officials were also notified of suspicion, who, according to the investigation, failed to properly prepare the storm sewer and water drainage system.
How the authorities reacted
After the tragedy, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sharply criticized the work of local authorities, saying that if the leaders “cannot overcome critical problems on their own, there will be decisions by the central government on them.”
Soon after, a petition to establish a city military administration in Odesa appeared on the president’s website, quickly gaining 25,000 signatures.
Subsequently, Zelenskyy created the Odesa MMA and appointed Serhiy Lysak, who had previously headed the Dnipro MMA, as its head.
Citizenship and loss of office
At the same time, another scandal broke out: on October 13, a petition demanding that Trukhanov be deprived of Ukrainian citizenship was published on the president’s website.
It gained the necessary votes in less than a day.
The next day, the SBU announced that Trukhanov had lost his Ukrainian citizenship because he had a Russian passport.
This meant that he automatically lost his position as mayor of Odesa.
Trukhanov himself denies that he ever had a Russian passport and is preparing a separate lawsuit to appeal the decision to terminate his citizenship.
The date of the appeal hearing has not yet been determined.
If it is rejected, the former mayor will remain under round-the-clock house arrest while the investigation continues.
Trukhanov and Odesa
Gennadiy Trukhanov has been the head of Odesa since 2014. His political career was accompanied by a series of corruption investigations and trials, but the case never reached a verdict.
In 2018, the NABU accused Trukhanov of seizing the property of the local community when he bought the premises of the former Krayan plant at an inflated price. The court acquitted him, but the case was renewed several times in different instances.
In 2021, OCCRP journalists published an investigation that suggested Trukhanov might have dual citizenship – Ukrainian and Russian– which he has consistently denied.
Despite the outcry, Trukhanov was re-elected three times as mayor of Odesa, maintaining his influence on local politics and business groups that traditionally determined the political balance in the city.
After the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, he was often accused of inaction on defense and civilian security issues, including the state of shelters and sewer infrastructure.
