Participants of the "Money for the Armed Forces" campaign criticize Lysak's clean-ups in Odesa

The campaign "Money for the Armed Forces" was held in Odesa on Saturday, November 15, and its participants criticized the clean-ups that have been held by the city hall for three weeks in a row.

According to the Odeske Zhyttia newspaper, instead of holding demonstration cleanups, the authorities should focus on supporting the army and solving the problems caused by the war.

Victoria Kuchurka, a regular participant in the action, said that the "big cleanup" is needed not so much as part of the weekly cleanups, but in the minds of deputies and officials, so that they think more about how the citizens can survive during the war, rather than about their own interests.

"I would like to appeal to the military administration: we need to start by cleaning up the minds of our city deputies... Stop enriching yourself, we need to think about how to survive, firstly, for our relatives at the front and, secondly, for us here, when there are air raids every night and no electricity every day. Pay attention to this when spending our taxes, our money, our subventions that come to our city. Enough with the toilets and all this nonsense," Victoria Kuchurka expressed the demands of the protesters.

The clean-ups began after the head of the Odesa City Military Administration, Serhiy Lysak, told city hall officials on October 27 that the city was not paying enough attention to cleanliness and ordered them to clean up the city within a month. He also hinted that in case of non-compliance with his order, officials could be dismissed. That's why even department directors came out for the first cleanup, and on November 15, the third cleanup was held, involving more than 7,000 employees of the city hall's structural units, utilities and institutions. Cleaning was carried out at 69 locations in all districts of the city.

The "Money for the Armed Forces" campaign began on August 28, 2023, when the Odesa City Council approved the allocation of 106 million for the repair of the Kyiv District Court and Kateryna Nozhevnikova, head of the Monster Corporation charity foundation, announced a picket outside the Odesa City Council. The picket, which was planned as a single event, turned into an action involving several hundred people. In November 2023, Kateryna Nozhevnikova decided to stop the rally, satisfied that the Odesa City Council had decided to cancel the procurement. However, she did not call on other protesters to stop their actions, leaving it to their own discretion. Sometimes the rallies are used to make political statements, for example, on September 20, 2025, one of them called for the introduction of a military administration in Odesa.

Кирило Бойко