Odesa City Council approves site for Lesia Ukrainka monument

On April 16, 2025, a session of the Odesa City Council approved a site for the installation of a monument to Lesia Ukrainka in Odesa. The next stage of the struggle for the monument to the poetess in the city has been overcome - this is the focus of the week. Also in the traditional Intent digest: shelling, personnel changes in the mayor's office and news from the SEC.

The focus of the week is the monument to Lesya Ukrainka in Odesa

A memorial plaque in Odesa

• Larysa Petrivna Kosach was born on February 25, 1871, in the town of Novohrad-Volynskyi (1795-2022), now Zvyagel, Zhytomyr region. Since childhood, her family called her Lesia.
• She learned to read at the age of 4, at 5 she could write and play the piano, at 6 she was a good embroiderer, at 9 she wrote her first poem, "Hope," at 13 she began publishing her poetry, at 14 she wrote her first poem, "The Mermaid," and translated Gogol's "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka." at 19, she created a textbook "Ancient History of Eastern Peoples" for her younger sisters, and at 22, with the assistance of Ivan Franko, she published her first poetry collection, "On the Wings of Songs," with a circulation of 500 copies.
• At the age of 9, she caught a cold and fell ill. The complication was incurable bone tuberculosis.
• The poetess visited Odesa at least 18 times. She was treated here, stayed with the family of her friends the Komarovs, and wrote a cycle of poems "Journey to the Sea" and the story "Over the Sea." Her play "Blue Rose" was staged on the Odesa stage in 1903. In Odesa, there is a street named after Lesia Ukrainka in the Peresypskyi district, and in 2024, according to the order of the head of the Odesa Regional State Administration, Gagarin Avenue was renamed in her honor.
• On April 10, 2025, it became known that the issue of erecting a monument to Lesia Ukrainka was again discussed at a meeting of the standing committee in Odesa. It is planned to be placed in the Cosmonauts' Park at the corner of Lesia Ukrainka Street (formerly Garina Avenue) and Fontanska Road; the park will also be named after the prominent Ukrainian poetess.
• On April 16, the Odesa City Council approved this location for the monument at its session.

Troubled sky over Odesa region

Photo: Odesa Regional Prosecutor's Office

• On April 18, at around 22:00, the Russian armed forces launched missile strikes on the civilian infrastructure of Odesa region.
• Farms in Odesa region were damaged.
• On April 21, from 21:55 to 22:55, the air attack on Odesa continued.
• Civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, educational institutions, and cars were damaged and destroyed. The fires were extinguished by rescuers, volunteers, a firefighting unit of the National Guard of Ukraine and a unit of the Odesa City Council.
• According to the municipality, more than 90 windows were smashed in three schools in the city as a result of the enemy attack.
• On April 23, it became known that the shelling damaged civilian infrastructure, including the premises of a private enterprise, residential buildings, and several cars. A 66-year-old man was injured and hospitalized with burns.

Trukhanov has taken care of personnel

Photo: Odesa City Council

• On April 19, Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov appointed Volodymyr Kharishchak as the director of the municipal security department of the Odesa City Council .
• In fact, Volodymyr Kharishchak lost his status as an interim acting director. He has been heading the department since the beginning of March 2025.
• On April 24, the mayor signed a decree amending the previous document on cooperation with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
• It is about updating the composition of the working group established in 2023 to attract technical and technological assistance in the restoration and development of the city's critical infrastructure. The need for changes is explained by personnel changes in the executive bodies of the city council.
• On April 25, Hennadii Trukhanov appointed an advisor on barrier-free space, Oleksii Morozov, founder of the NGO Bezbarierni and the charity foundation Dopomoga Odeschenii.

Talking loudly about the SEC again

Photo: National Police in Odesa region

• On April 18, it became known that since the beginning of the year, more than 1,300 proceedings have been opened in Odesa region for violating the rules of military registration.
• The most high-profile case was recorded in Odesa: The Prymorskyi District Military Commissariat opened seven proceedings against one man at once, which is currently a national record for 2025.
• On April 21, law enforcement officers detained three young men in military uniforms on a road near the city of Chornomorsk, Odesa Oblast, who, under the guise of a TCC, beat and pushed a local resident into the cabin of their car.
• The police confiscated the car in which the victim was held and the detainees' membership certificates in the public organization.
• On April 22, police served a notice of suspicion of hooliganism to a serviceman of the Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support and two members of an NGO after a fight with shooting in Khadzhibey district of Odesa.
• One of the suspects, while drunk, came to his former neighbor's house to settle a long-standing hostile relationship, and not finding the owner at home, provoked a quarrel with his wife. The aggressive man was kicked out by the woman's neighbor. However, he soon returned to his house with four friends.

Ігор Льов