Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stripped the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, of Ukrainian citizenship over allegations that he possesses a Russian passport.
The Ukrainian leader has instead appointed a military administration to run the country’s biggest port city on the Black Sea, with a population of about 1 million.
“The Ukrainian citizenship of the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, has been suspended,” Ukraine’s SBU security service announced on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday, citing a decree signed by Zelenskyy.
The SBU accused the mayor of “possessing 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 “confirmed… the fact that certain individuals hold Russian citizenship – relevant decisions regarding them have been prepared. I have signed the decree”, Zelenskyy said.
A former member of parliament, Trukhanov has been the mayor of Odesa since 2014. He has consistently denied accusations of holding Russian citizenship, an allegation that has dogged him throughout his political career.
Credit: aljazeera.com
