Hennadiy Trukhanov

Mayor of Odesa

Trukhanov was elected as the mayor of Odesa three times, securing the position in 2014, 2015, and 2020. Amid rising unrest in Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the violent 2014 Odesa clashes, he was elected mayor of the city on 25 May 2014. In the 2015 mayoral election of Odesa Trukhanov was reelected in the first round with 52.9% of the vote.

In 2018, Trukhanov opened the Center for Integrated Social Services, where city residents can receive social services, certificates, or consultations.

Trukhanov led the Ukrainian Muay Thai Boxing Federation. That same year, he helped implement the Odesa School Basketball League project, involving 80 teams from 50 schools.

Trukhanov supported the restoration of several architectural monuments, including the Potemkin Stairs, the Russov House, the Falz-Fein House, the Skarzhynsky income house and others. Existing and new parks were also modernised and built, including the Istanbul Park—a joint project of Trukhanov and Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas—and the Greek Park, supported by the Greek diaspora.

For the July 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, Trukhanov was given a top-ten spot in the party list of Opposition Bloc. In the event, the party only won 3.23% of the vote, failing to get the 5% needed to gain seats in parliament.

In the 2020 Odesa local election Trukhanov was again a candidate for mayor of Odesa (nominated by Trust Deeds). Trukhanov defeated Mykola Skoryk of Opposition Platform – For Life in the second round of the mayoral election on 15 November 2020, 54.28% of the voters voted for him.

After the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Trukhanov created a working group of historians with diverse perspectives on historical facts. The Odesa city government negotiated with the head of the UNESCO World Heritage Center, Lazare Eloundou Assomo, to form a working group including members of Italy's Ministry of Culture, researchers from the Polytechnic University of Turin, members of the UNESCO nomination committee, and Odesa historians, cultural experts, and architects. This collaboration led to the Historic Centre of Odesa receiving World Heritage status.

In May 2025, Trukhanov, together with members of parliament, represented Ukraine at the Parliamentary Forum on Security in Madrid, discussing the challenges cities face during wartime.

On 14 October 2025, Trukhanov was effectively removed from his post of mayor of Odesa after being stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship by a decree of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The following day President Zelenskyy created the Odesa city military administration to govern the city. Appointed head of the Odesa military administration was Serhiy Lysak.

As part of an investigation, Trukhanov was detained upon his arrival in Ukraine, at Ukraine's Boryspil International Airport on 14 February 2018 suspected of embezzlement of property through abuse of power. He was later released on bail. In July 2019, the Odesa District Court found Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov and other defendants not guilty.

He has been named as part of a Ukrainian crime syndicate who laundered money through London by buying multi-million pound properties in the city. In October 2022 he was charged in an ongoing corruption investigation concerning $18.5 million in municipal losses, and on 4 May 2023 he was detained on charges of embezzling $2.5 million in city funds. He was released the next day after paying $350,000 bail.

Charges of official negligence On 28 October 2025, the National Police of Ukraine handed Trukhanov and eight other officials a notice of suspicion in a case of negligence that resulted in the deaths of nine people. On 21 January 2026, the Pechersky Court of Kyiv replaced Trukhanov's house arrest with a personal commitment. The court also ordered the removal of Trukhanov's electronic bracelet.

Russian citizenship scandal In 2016, the leaked Panama Papers said that Trukhanov held Russian citizenship, despite Ukrainian law banning dual citizenship. Trukhanov denied the allegation. The Panama Papers also show that he has "a substantial business empire in Ukraine through companies registered in the British Virgin Islands", with a suburb of Moscow listed as his place of residence. On 9 April 2016, Eduard Hurvits, ex-mayor of Odesa, affirmed that Trukhanov possesses three foreign passports: two Russian and one Greek. Trukhanov in 2017, through a Russian court, annulled his Russian passport.

A petition to revoke Trukhanov's Ukrainian citizenship was posted on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy's website on 13 October 2025. It gained more than 28,000 signatures. On 14 October, Trukhanov was stripped of Ukrainian citizenship through a decree signed by President Zelenskyy. A Russian foreign travel passport that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said belonged to Trukhanov was released. The authenticity of the passport was doubted by The Insider. Its lead investigative journalist Christo Grozev called the passport "demonstrably fake" adding that it was likely to have originated from Russian active measures.