Oct. 15, 2025, 8:59 a.m.

Over 11 years, 320 Ukrainians have lost their passports: among them Odesa Mayor Trukhanov

(PHOTO COLLAGE: informator.ua)

Over 11 years, more than 300 people have been deprived of Ukrainian citizenship. Among them is Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov, who is already preparing a lawsuit.

This was reported by Slovo i Dilo.

Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov has been deprived of Ukrainian citizenship. Along with him, according to media reports, former Party of Regions MP Oleh Tsarev, who was convicted of treason, and dancer Serhiy Polunin lost their passports. The Security Service of Ukraine confirmed that Trukhanov has a valid Russian passport and released information about the circumstances of its receipt. The mayor himself said he was preparing to appeal the decision in court.

According to analytical data, more than 320 people were deprived of their citizenship by decrees of the presidents of Ukraine from 2014 to the end of September 2025. The statistics cover the period since the beginning of Russian aggression and do not take into account the latest decisions regarding Trukhanov, Tsarev, and Polunin.

Most cases occurred during the term of Petro Poroshenko: 54 people were deprived of Ukrainian citizenship in 2014, 49 in 2015, and 51 in 2016. Among them were MP Andriy Artemenko and former head of the Odesa Regional State Administration Mikheil Saakashvili.

After 2019, when Volodymyr Zelenskyy became president, the number of such decrees decreased, but they often concerned odious individuals. Among those deprived of their citizenship are former OPFL MPs Taras Kozak, Renat Kuzmin, and Viktor Medvedchuk, as well as Andrii Derkach.

In 2021, Odesa businessmen Vadym Alperin, Araik Amirkhanyan, and Oleksandr Yerimichuk, who were sanctioned by the National Security and Defense Council as smugglers, were deprived of their citizenship. The passports of MPs Vadym Rabinovych and Ihor Vasylkovskyi, as well as businessmen Ihor Kolomoiskyi and Hennadiy Korban, were also revoked.

In 2022-2025, the presidential decrees concerned mainly representatives of the UOC (MP) clergy. In particular, Metropolitans Onufriy, Jonathan, Meletiy, Iosif, and other church leaders associated with the Moscow Patriarchate were deprived of their citizenship.

Now this list has been expanded to include the mayor of Odesa, who was found to be in possession of a Russian passport by the SBU. Commenting on the situation, the President announced his intention to establish a military administration in Odesa and appoint its head.

A petition calling for the deprivation of Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov of Ukrainian citizenship gained more than 25,000 signatures in less than a day. On the evening of October 12, Trukhanov published an appeal in which he stated that a presidential commission was allegedly considering revoking his citizenship because of suspicions that he had a Russian passport. He denied this, calling the story another provocation.

On October 14, Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree depriving the mayor of Odesa of Ukrainian citizenship. The issue of Trukhanov's dual citizenship has been raised since 2014, when he repeatedly denied having a Russian passport, and law enforcement checks did not confirm this fact.

The head of the Odesa regional organization of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine , Anatoliy Boyko, suggested that this could be part of the government's strategy to create military administrations instead of city councils.

Анна Бальчінос

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