Dec. 16, 2024, 11:52 a.m.
(Photo collage: Intent)
Journalist Natalia Mosiychuk, a presenter of the 1+1 TV channel, presented the film "Cool Odesa", which is almost entirely composed of an interview with the head of the Odesa Regional Administration, Oleh Kiper.
It should be noted that Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov is not in the interview and is not even mentioned at all, while the head of the Servant of the People faction, Oleh Filimonov, is present in the video, although less than the head of the ODA.
In general, political scientists and journalists have the impression that the interview is a preparation for the elections. Earlier, the head of the Odesa regional organization of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, Anatoliy Boyko, predicted that they would be held in 2025 by 99%.
"The style of the interview is close to the program. Such interviews are often conducted on the eve of the election campaign. But the question remains whether this is Mr. Kiper's own initiative or part of the president's national campaign," Anatoliy Boyko noted.
Intent tried to collect interesting theses of this movie-interview for its readers.
Probably the most discussed in the media today is the statement by Oles Kiper that Metropolitan Agafangel of Odesa and Izmail, who heads the branch of the Russian Orthodox Church in the region known as the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), saved Odesa from a Russian landing in 2022.
"In the first days of the war, Agafangel, at the age of 84, took an icon that was later rescued from the cathedral and traveled along the coast for more than a day so that Russian ships could not land, and we know that after that a storm raged at sea for 10 days and Russian ships could not approach the coast. And this is not a legend, it is the truth," said Oleg Kiper.
It should be noted that in January 2024, Odesa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov awarded Major Denys Didychuk with the Odesa Mayor's Honorary Award "For the Defense of Odesa". On March 21, 2022, Denys Didychuk commanded a rocket-artillery platoon of the 28th separate mechanized brigade named after the Knights of the Winter Campaign, which fought with Russian ships in the morning of that day and shot down one of the frigates, forcing the enemy to abandon further attacks.
Natalia Mosiychuk touched upon the criticism of Oleg Kiper by businessmen for taking grain exports under his personal control. In response, Oleg Kiper said that all the criticism on this issue revolved around Order No. 19 "On Some Issues of Financial Discipline under the Legal Regime of Martial Law." He said that this order made it possible to force exporters to work in the legal field "in white" and to remove "one-day" companies from the market.
The Ukrainian Grain Association, on the other hand, insisted that the order established administrative obstacles to grain exports and noted that the DIA had recently canceled it due to the entry into force of amendments to the Tax Code and the Cabinet of Ministers' resolution "On the Introduction of the Export Security Regime." In an interview, Oleh Kiper confirmed the cancellation of this order.
Also in the interview, the head of the DACK said at length that he was not a politician and that his appointment to the position in Odesa region was a surprise. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy allegedly invited him, asked him how long he had seen his mother, and then said that he would see her more often now.
Oleh Kiper himself said that he was not a politician and grew up in the village, and then worked for a long time in the prosecutor's office, but he was not involved in politics and tries to minimize politics in his activities. He told us how he milked a cow at home, fed pigs, and bought his first motorcycle.
The conversation with Oleh Kiper was interspersed with a trip to the Transfiguration Cathedral, meetings with the crew of a mobile fire team, and visits to a power plant and one of the region's military hospitals, as well as the Odesa House of Scientists.
Кирило Бойко
March 22, 2026
A conductor was killed by a train on the Odesa railway