Kyiv, Ukraine – Professional-Moscow sympathies, corruption and multimillion-dollar embezzlement, reported ties to Ukrainian, Greek and Italian mobsters and the orchestration of assaults on virtually a dozen anticorruption whistleblowers.
That’s simply an abridged checklist of the accusations Gennadiy Trukhanov has confronted since 2014, when he was elected mayor of Odesa, the nation’s third-largest metropolis and residential to its largest seaport and the naval headquarters.
Beneficial Tales
checklist of 4 objectsfinish of checklist
The 60-year-old former navy officer and martial arts fanatic has confronted corruption-related arrests in 2018 and investigations in 2023. The most recent case includes an “unlawful takeover” of government-owned land for actual property improvement that price $16.5m, in accordance with Ukraine’s anticorruption prosecutors.
Russian or not?
On October 14, the political drama intensified.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy determined to strip Trukhanov of Ukrainian citizenship after a scan of the mayor’s allegedly Russian passport was printed by Ukrainian intelligence.
Trukhanov denied having Russian citizenship, though a Panama Papers leak years in the past appeared to indicate that he had one – and used it to register offshore corporations.
Two days after shedding his Ukrainian citizenship, Trukhanov was fired as a part of what some observers name a turf struggle between central and regional authorities brought on by the provisions of martial legislation, conflicting jurisdictions and Kyiv’s push to rein in unruly politicians in front-line areas.
“Trukhanov has lengthy had a severe battle with political and ideological opponents; they thought-about him ideologically harmful and warred with him for years,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta assume tank, informed Al Jazeera.
Russia has not commented on the incident.
On the time of publishing, Trukhanov had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for remark.
Throughout a information convention on October 15, he mentioned he by no means held a Russian passport.
“It’s an ethical execution. They simply executed me,” he informed the journalists.
He is beneath home arrest and is combating to revive his citizenship.
On Wednesday, one other row with a high official rocked Ukraine as Zelenskyy suspended Herman Haluschenko as justice minister for his presumed involvement in a corruption scandal within the vitality trade.
The scandal concerned Zelenskyy’s former enterprise accomplice, who is alleged to have profited from kickbacks paid by corporations that wished contracts with Energoatom, the state-run monopoly that manages all of Ukraine’s nuclear energy stations, in accordance with anticorruption prosecutors and media stories.
Assaults on anticorruption activists
Russian President Vladimir Putin has lengthy wished to grab Odesa, one of many Soviet period’s most cosmopolitan hubs. It is called a author’s metropolis, has a literary museum and is famed for music and an absurdist sense of humour that helps Ukrainians deal with the struggle.
In 2014, a Moscow-backed separatist rebellion threatened town as clashes killed about 50 folks. In 2022, Russian troops tried to take over town of 1 million. In the present day, deadly missiles and drones convey terror to Odesa because the struggle rages on, whereas the port’s operations are repeatedly disrupted.
After the 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 occupation of Ukraine’s ports on the Sea of Azov, town grew to become a lifeline maritime export route for Ukraine’s grain and metal.
Trukhanov stayed on as mayor after Zelenskyy got here to energy on an anticorruption ticket in 2019.
Activists in Odesa have claimed Trukhanov allowed corruption and crime to prevail within the years earlier than Zelenskyy’s presidency started.
In 2018, Transparency Worldwide Ukraine listed a dozen assaults on activists and “politically uncovered individuals” within the metropolis because it printed a letter signed by civil society representatives calling for motion.
In 2019, anticorruption activist Mykhailo Kuzakon informed Al Jazeera, “It was Trukhanov’s goons”, as he described how a truck allegedly sped as much as run him over close to his home in Odesa. He survived the incident, which passed off a 12 months earlier, however his colleague’s automobile was destroyed. In the course of the interview, Kuzakon, the pinnacle of the Narodny Rukh (Individuals’s Motion) anticorruption organisation, was carrying a bulletproof vest and had two government-provided bodyguards subsequent to him.
Investigations into the assault on him and different activists didn’t conclude that Trukhanov was concerned after key witnesses refused to testify and proof went lacking.
An excuse for sacking?
Kyiv had been afraid of doable protest rallies that would comply with Trukhanov’s sacking, in accordance with Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany’s Bremen College, till a tragic calamity offered a helpful excuse.
On October 1, torrential rains flooded Odesa, damaging lots of of buildings and killing 11, together with a toddler. Critics mentioned the catastrophe highlighted the Trukhanov administration’s failure to construct an efficient drainage system regardless of perennial warnings.
And for the remainder of Ukraine, Zelenskyy’s administration “reanimated the story with [Trukhanov’s Russian] passport that’s 15 years previous and that didn’t cease [the mayor] from successfully managing Odesa throughout the three-and-a-half years of struggle,” Mitrokhin informed Al Jazeera.
Some Odesans agree.
“All people has recognized for years that Trukhanov had a Russian passport. All people has recognized about his ties to the mob and his hand in each pie,” Oleh, a 43-year-old Odesa native who withheld his final title as he fears for his security, informed Al Jazeera. “He was sacked as a result of solely now Zelenskyy is powerful sufficient to get him out of the sport.”
In 1998, Italian police described Trukhanov as a part of a mafia group suspected of extortion and arms trafficking. Their report mentioned Trukhanov used a Greek passport and was liable for coaching gang members in hand-to-hand fight and sniper capturing.
Trukhanov denied the claims however admitted friendship with the folks recognized because the gang’s leaders.
Others have combined emotions about Trukhanov’s legacy, crediting him with defending Odesa from Russian forces, but additionally snubbing the historic centre of town, based in 1794.
“Odesa is soiled and tacky. He didn’t take excellent care of it; [historic] buildings want renovation, bushes want a trim,” workplace supervisor Zynaida, who moved to Odesa from central Ukraine, informed Al Jazeera. She withheld her final title for security causes.
Trukhanov is not going to get replaced by an elected mayor. His 70-year-old deputy, former college professor Ihor Koval, is now performing mayor. Zelenskyy has appointed Common Serhiy Lysak as head of Odesa’s navy administration.
Lysak is linked to Zelenskyy’s political clan, which principally consists of figures from the cities of Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih. The group had already tried to realize a foothold in Odesa in 2014, mentioned analyst Mitrokhin.
Ex-boxer boxed in
Trukhanov’s dismissal adopted Zelenskyy’s stress on different highly effective heavyweights, together with a literal one.
Vitali Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion and mayor of Kyiv since 2014, has been embroiled in an influence wrestle with Zelenskyy for years.
Klitschko disliked Zelenskyy lengthy earlier than the president – a well-liked comic, actor and producer – grew to become a politician.
Zelenskyy’s District 95 comedian troupe mocked Klitschko, portraying him of their routines as incoherent.
In actual life, Klitschko was an in depth ally of Zelenskyy’s presidential predecessor and principal rival, Petro Poroshenko.
In 2023, Zelenskyy accused Klitschko of failing security measures after a missile assault killed a nine-year-old woman, her mom and their neighbour as they tried to enter a closed-down bomb shelter.
Their feud grew after Zelenskyy’s appointment of “martial legislation chief” Tymur Tkachenko as head of Kyiv’s navy administration in late 2023.
Tkachenko took over some administrative tasks, however critics doubted the need of such a determine within the metropolis that sits lots of of kilometres from the entrance line. When Russia started its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russian forces did not seize Kyiv and withdrew from the area.
The Klitschko and Trukhanov rows may manifest Zelenskyy’s push to quell political opposition “at the least” in Ukraine’s south and centre.
“That’s the place he sees his electoral base,” analyst Mitrokhin informed Al Jazeera.
He predicted that Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv in western Ukraine and one other notable critic of Zelenskyy, could possibly be sidelined because the area voted in opposition to Zelenskyy within the 2019 vote.
