Investigation: How Odesa withdrew support for TRO after Trukhanov's decisions

In the first days of the full-scale invasion, the territorial defense was supposed to be Odesa's shield. However, the decisions of the city authorities show that funding for the TRO was launched late and then gradually curtailed.

An analysis of the City Council's decisions, Trukhanov's orders, and Treasury reports examined by the Center for Public Investigations shows how support for the TRO has become a formality.

A program without money

The Odesa City Council approved a city target program to promote the development of territorial defense units and volunteer formations of the territorial community for 2022-2023. It was later extended until 2028. However, despite declarative preparations for national resistance, immediately after the program was adopted, it turned out that not a single hryvnia was provided for in the city budget for its implementation.

2022: a late start

The Department of Municipal Security proved to be the most unsuccessful in terms of implementation. According to the passport of the budget program, it was supposed to provide "material and technical equipment for volunteer formations of the territorial community of Odesa". However, the report on the implementation of the program states that "the discrepancy between the actual and approved allocations arose due to unused funds for the purchase of uniforms due to the lack of tender proposals."

2023: chaos in numbers and decisions

In 2023, all funds initially allocated to the Executive Committee were completely withdrawn in July. A similar situation occurred with the Department of Consumer Market Development and Consumer Protection. At the same time, the opposite trend was observed for the Capital Construction Department and the Municipal Security Department: their budget allocations increased during the year, but sharply decreased at the end. As a result, planned expenditures at the end of the year were almost three times higher than at the beginning.

2024: funding curtailment

In 2024, the trends changed. At the beginning of the year, large budget allocations were approved, but soon a gradual reduction in funding began - for almost all key spending units. It was this year that a new funding scheme was introduced. The Department of Internal Policy was authorized to implement the project "providing financial support to civil society institutions (public and charitable organizations) to address issues of providing for the territorial defense forces of Odesa."

Only the Department of Municipal Security managed to fully meet its targets . The other key spending units did not fully utilize the funds even after the reduction of their allocations.

If we compare the budget program passports at the beginning and end of the year, we can see that both measures envisaged by the general fund were canceled. Out of four measures of the development budget, only two remained.

All of this shows that it was in 2024 that the gradual curtailment of funding for territorial defense began. Data from the OpenBudget service only confirms this: almost 80% of all annual expenditures were made in the first half of the year.

2025: the curtailment continues

In 2025, the tendency to reduce funding intensified.<span> Not only the Executive Committee, but also the Department of Defense were </span><span> completely </span>excluded from<span> this area </span><span>. </span>

About two-thirds of the adjusted budget allocations were directed to "civil society institutions (public and charitable organizations)." However, according to the Treasury Service's report, the annual plan was fulfilled by only 11.3% in the first nine months of the year.

Кирило Бойко