Odesa MVA concealed a document on the division of powers with the city council

Following the establishment of the city military administration in Odesa in the fall of 2025, the city now has two centers of power: the city council and the military administration. However, how exactly the powers are distributed between them is not publicly disclosed.

TheCenter for Public Investigations asked Odesa City Hall and the city council to provide a copy of the document regulating the division of responsibilities between the city authorities and the military administration.

In response, MMA officials said that the interaction between the Odesa City Military Administration and the Odesa City Council is in the format of constructive cooperation, and in accordance with the provisions of the Law of Ukraine "On the Legal Regime of Martial Law."

At the same time, the Odesa City Council reported that no documents corresponding to the description of the request were found in their electronic document management system. Based on the results of a check of the database of executive committee decisions and mayoral orders, no such documents were found according to the specified criteria.

SCREEN: response from the city council

After that, the journalists of the CPR sent another request - asking for a list of documents that were classified or classified as official information (SIC) between October 1, 2025 and February 15, 2026.

However, the military administration refused this request as well, noting that the requested information also belongs to restricted information.

SCREEN: OMVA's response

Anatoliy Boyko, coordinator of the all-Ukrainian civic campaign"Certification of Local Council Deputies" and head of the Odesa Committee of Voters of Ukraine, notes that additional regulation of the interaction between the military administration and the city authorities would be logical.

"Legislation in this area contains many gaps, so additional regulation of these gaps by a memorandum between the MCA and the city council would definitely be useful. In addition, according to a number of deputies and representatives of the city council, such a regulation on the division of powers does exist, but it is classified, so if it does exist, we insist on its publication," he said.

As a result, the situation looks paradoxical: the military administration says the document exists but has limited access, while the city council says it has not found any such documents in its system.

On October 14, President Zelensky revoked the Ukrainian citizenship of Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov, after which he formally lost his powers as mayor. The next day, Zelensky announced the creation of the Odesa City Military Administration, and on October 16, the new head of the OMMA, Serhiy Lysak, was introduced in Odesa.

Meanwhile, Ihor Koval, the secretary of the Odesa City Council , became the acting mayor.

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