Highlights of the week: Odesa authorities surrender to decolonizers, and the British don't leave Dmytruk alone

Decolonizers put pressure - the mayor's office retreats

On September 26, members of the executive committee appointed the Capital Construction Department of the Odesa City Council as the customer for the design of dismantling (transferring, removing) monuments from the public space in Odesa.

Photo collage: Intent

The list includes 19 monuments.

Among them:

• Monument to M. Gorky - Mark Twain Park.
• Models of the Order of Lenin - Tenth of April Square, Wings of Victory memorial.
• Monument to I. Babel - on Svyatoslav Karavansky Street (former Zhukovsky Street).
• Monument to Alexander II. Commemorative column in honor of the foundation of the park - Marazliyivska Street, Taras Shevchenko Park.
• Monuments to Pushkin on Pushkinska Street and Prymorskyi Boulevard.
• The monument to Vysotsky is on Frantsuzsky Boulevard near the film studio.

Earlier, the head of the Odesa Regional State Administration, Oleh Kiper, said in an interview with City of Power that he had signed an order to dismantle the monument to Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, which is located on Prymorskyi Boulevard in front of the city hall.

On the night of September 6, activists Demian Hanul and Vladislav Balynsky demolished the bas-relief depicting the Hero of the Soviet Union star and the Order of Lenin. The day before, Marina Boyko, a member of the city council from the European Solidarity party, appealed to Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov to dismantle or temporarily close the bas-reliefs of the Order of Lenin and the medal on the Wings of Victory monument on the square.

On the morning of September 28, it became known that the activists had broken the bas-reliefs.

Among the objects to be dismantled in Odesa is a mass grave of Red Guards on Kulykove Pole. Defenders of the Ukrainian People's Republic may be buried there. The city authorities are going to exhume the bodies and move them to another cemetery.

No chance to hide in Britain

People's Deputy Artem Dmytruk, who managed to escape from Ukrainian law enforcement, was detained in Britain, but local law enforcement officers did not leave him alone and dragged him to a local court. Currently, the Office of the Prosecutor General is preparing documents for the MP's extradition home. He is to be tried in Ukraine. In early September, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine appealed to Interpol to issue a Red Notice against the said MP Artem Dmytruk.

Photo: Espresso.TV

The Prosecutor General of Ukraine Andriy Kostin has served a notice of suspicion to the current Member of Parliament of Ukraine on the facts of attacks by a group of people on a law enforcement officer and a military officer, attempted theft of firearms, infliction of moderate bodily harm to the victim and hooliganism.

Earlier, the State Bureau of Investigation served notice of suspicion to three people who illegally transported MP Artem Dmytruk, a suspect in attacks on citizens, across the state border to Transnistria.

Military commissar with a retired son

The new head of the Odesa Regional Territorial Center for Recruitment and Social Support, Yuriy Puiko, gave journalists his first interview since his appointment. He said a lot, but did not answer the question of how to eradicate the detention of people on the streets and their forced delivery to military commissariats. This phenomenon is popularly called "busification," but according to Yuriy Puiko, this word should be eradicated. The word itself. Yuriy Puiko called all the videos of TCC employees confronting citizens as paid-for.

Yuriy Puiko and his son. Photo collage: Intent

After this interview, the media became interested in the military commissar and his family and found out that Yuriy Puiko's son went on vacation to Turkey in 2023. However, the declaration of the head of the TCC states that his son receives a disability pension.

Injured, dead, destroyed: Russians do not stop shelling Odesa region

On the morning of September 28, a recreation center in Odesa region was damaged as a result of another air attack by the Russian occupiers. The enemy fired a missile at Odesa region and hit a recreation center in the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi district. 600 square meters were burned out, but there were no injuries or deaths.

Photo: Oleh Kiper/OVA

Unlike the attack the region suffered a day earlier, when the Russian military launched attack drones in the south of Odesa region in the morning. Izmail was hit the hardest. The attack killed three people: two women aged 90 and 69 and a 73-year-old man. Eleven people were injured, including one child.

Late in the evening of September 24, the Russian occupiers fired four aircraft missiles at the territory of Odesa region. According to the military, the X-59/69 guided missiles were launched from the airspace of the Black Sea. The air defense forces managed to shoot down four X-59/69 missiles.

But it should be noted that this week's shelling was at least not daily.

Swearing at the previous name of Chornomorsk is not a crime and other renaming

The Chornomorsk court acquitted singer Khrystyna Soloviy, who had used foul language about the city' s old name on stage at Videlkafest. "This is bullshit," the singer said on stage.

Photo collage: Intent

This angered some of the Black Sea residents, and the police opened a hooliganism case. The court ruling stated that the artist's obscene statement did not insult the audience, the residents of Chornomorsk, or the city itself.

Meanwhile, another more recent renaming in the Odesa region has been stalled because of France. Unexpectedly? The French Embassy was outraged by the intention to rename the village of Nadezhdivka to Champagne. The French fear that the local winery is trying to circumvent international restrictions on the name "champagne" in wines, which is currently reserved only for wines produced in the French region of Champagne.

Almost an anniversary. Odesa residents continue to protest against inappropriate tenders

Odesa residents lined up in the city center along Preobrazhenska Street in the historic center of the city, starting from the corner of this street and Deribasovska Street.

Photo: Intent/Nata Chernetska

Since last year, more than 50 such actions have taken place in Odesa. For example, on August 24, several dozen activists lined up along Preobrazhenska Street on Soborna Square to mark the anniversary of the beginning of the protests.

The March 23rally became the 29th only because the rally on Saturday, March 2, was canceled due to the Day of Mourning. So the September 30 rally became the anniversary rally.

The first rally took place 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. But this year, August 28 is a Wednesday.

The single picket of the Odesa volunteer turned into a mass rally because of the desire of Odessans to support the volunteer. More than 100 people came to the rally, and since then the rallies have become a tradition.