Crime, shifting allegiances, and a Russian passport — How Odesa's longtime mayor fell from grace
As Hennadiy Trukhanov’s era ends, Ukraine’s main port city faces an imminent power reshuffle
Hennadiy Trukhanov in his home, in Odesa, Ukraine on Nov. 6, 2025. (Stefania Amamdjian / The Kyiv Independent)
ODESA, Ukraine — Hennadiy Trukhanov's day-to-day is not what it used to be. Once the all-powerful mayor is now under house arrest, his passport stripped by presidential decree. He invites the Kyiv Independent to his guest house and pleads his innocence.
Trukhanov admits that his political career is over.
"For now," he adds. "And then we'll see. I have no doubt I'll get my Ukrainian citizenship back."
Trukhanov, 60, has led Ukraine's largest port city, Odesa, for 11 years. Throughout his entire tenure, he was seen as one of the country's most tainted mayors. His unexpected downfall was met with joy by many, despite the dubious procedure that President Volodymyr Zelensky used to rid Odesa of its leader.
When asked why people celebrated the president's move, Trukhanov backtracks.
Comparing his tenure to that of Grigorios Maraslis and Duke de Richelieu, who led the city in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Trukhanov defends his legacy.
"I feel like I spend my whole life working, and then I hear questions like that and think: what good have I actually done in this life?" he told the Kyiv Independent during an interview in early November.
But the questions aren't out of thin air. Odesa, home to approximately 1 million people, is renowned for its tourist appeal and impressive monumental architecture. And for its reputation as the capital of the country's organized crime.
Among Ukrainians, the city has long been seen as a hub for money laundering through major construction projects, factories, and port enterprises. Corruption in Odesa has also been a contributing factor to the problem, characterized by chaotic and often illegal construction.
Local activists and journalists who spoke with the Kyiv Independent see Trukhanov as part of the problem.
"What they have done to Odesa in the past 11 years is appalling. I believe they have altered the very essence of the city," activist Mykhailo Kuzakon told the Kyiv Independent.
"This is a state within a state. This is what they have built."
Trukhanov, in turn, brushed off the accusations, telling the Kyiv Independent that people who followed his tenure notice "only the bad."
Falling out of favor
On Oct. 12, Trukhanov received a message from an unknown number — a photo of what appeared to be his alleged Russian passport. At first, he didn't panic, since reports about his Russian citizenship had been circulating for years.
But when the sender warned that the situation was "very serious," the then-mayor went public, saying that he may have been stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship.
Two days later, Zelensky did just that. "I think this is illegal," Trukhanov said.
The decree has not been provided to the ex-mayor, which stalls his ability to appeal in court.
Throughout his 11-year-long tenure, Trukhanov remained loyal to every government. In turn, no decisive action was taken to challenge the mayor's grip over the city, until now.
Trukhanov met Zelensky when the comedian, yet to be elected president, was touring Odesa with the Kvartal 95 studio.
After Zelensky took office, he called on Trukhanov to "clean up Odesa from crime" and even threatened to "replace them all" if nothing changed. But nothing followed for years.
"There was no open conflict with the president. And whenever I was asked, I always said: I am not in opposition," Trukhanov said.
Trukhanov said that the passport allegations were fueled by his political opponents. He still hopes that the president will undo what he calls an "impulsive decision."
When asked about a possible conflict with Kyiv authorities, Trukhanov chooses his words carefully.
"I really want to share what I think. It's not pleasant, not for me personally. Still, what holds me back today is the fact that we're at war," he said. "It was done with a single purpose: to strip me of my citizenship so that I could not participate in the elections."
Although elections are a distant prospect in Ukraine due to Russia's ongoing all-out war, many see the revocation of Trukhanov's citizenship as a political move and a chance for the government to consolidate power in a city it doesn't fully control.
Now, the city is led by three people, each of whom, in one way or another, has ties to the President's Office.
Even Trukhanov's critics are questioning the circumstances and legality of revoking his citizenship. Yet, no one is stepping forward to defend the tainted mayor.
Criminal cases and partners
Trukhanov wasn't the only person pulling the strings in the city. Critics say he might have also not been the most influential one to do so.
Businessmen Aleksandr Angert and Volodymyr Galanternyk have long been considered by observers as the city's crime bosses in their own right.
Both are based abroad and couldn't be reached for comment.
According to a 1998 Italian police dossier, published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project in 2016, Trukhanov and Angert were "part of a mafia gang" headed by an international arms trafficker, Leonid Minin, in the 1990s. At the time, Trukhanov ran a security firm.
According to Kuzakon, it was Angert who effectively propelled Trukhanov to power in Odesa. He calls Angert, 69, the city's de facto ruler. Even now.
"(Trukhanov) is a person dependent on Angert. The one the mafia installed as the city's mayor," Kuzakon said.
Trukhanov referred to the 1990s as "horrific times," but he avoids going into details about his past and brushes off media reports about it, saying that he never faced criminal charges in Italy.
According to him, Angert occasionally visits Odesa, but he does not communicate with him.
"They write a lot about him, yet he continues to travel freely. No one arrests him," Trukhanov said.
Businessman Galanternyk had also been in touch with Angert in the past. Now, he is described as a "manager" who controls crucial assets in Odesa.
In 2021, Galanternyk acknowledged owning stakes in the "Pryvoz" and "Seventh Kilometer," two of the largest markets in Odesa, as well as the Arcadia City mall in the city's resort area. He also controlled the influential regional First City TV Channel, according to sources.
Trukhanov states that he hasn't been in touch with Galanternyk, who is on the wanted list, since before the start of the all-out war.
In recent years, Trukhanov grew closer to businessmen Boris Kaufman and Alexander Granovskyi, who have long represented Kyiv's interests in Odesa. In 2022, they were charged with creating a criminal group that "controlled the city's economy" as part of a large-scale corruption probe.
Trukhanov's three deputies were also charged.
Local journalist Mykhailo Shtekel, interviewed by the Kyiv Independent, did not rule out that Galanternyk's assets could be seized and later transferred to the Ukrainian agency responsible for managing assets derived from corruption.
"I have never given preferential treatment to Galanternyk or anyone else," Trukhanov said. "And I have never been under anyone's control. I have other priorities in life — not wealth, and certainly not ruining our city."
For years, however, those who investigated corruption in the city had a target on their back. Between 2017 and 2018, more than 10 attacks on activists were recorded. Kuzakon, who survived one, says activists are seen as "enemies" by Trukhanov. The ex-mayor denied accusations of being behind the attacks.
Criminal cases have loomed over Trukhanov for years.
In 2018, he was charged with embezzling Hr 92 million ($2.2 million) by purchasing Odesa's Krayan factory building for the city government at an inflated price.
An Odesa court acquitted him in 2019 amid allegations of political pressure on the judges. The verdict was later overturned on appeal, and the case was reopened in 2021. Trukhanov was arrested twice before being released on bail.
In late 2021, he faced another charge — for organized crime. Together with Galanternyk, Trukhanov was charged with privatizing some of the most lucrative land plots on Ukraine's priciest coastline.
In 2024, a company owned by Yuriy Shumakher, a member of Trukhanov's Doviriay Dilam (Trust the Deeds) party, made around Hr 6.8 billion ($160 million) on construction projects, according to the Opendatabot platform. The investigative media outlet Bihus.Info wrote that the company, Rostdorstroy, financed the Trukhanov's party during the 2020 local elections.
But it was the third case against the mayor — charges of negligence over deadly floods that claimed nine lives this October — that marked Trukhanov's downfall.
"I don't see how I could end up in prison. I haven't broken any laws in any of these cases," Trukhanov said.
Redistribution of power
Following Trukhanov's downfall, Odesa is bracing for a redistribution of power.
"Most likely, it will simply be restructured, with different people in charge. Perhaps it will be more controlled by businessmen from Kyiv," said Vladyslav Balinskyi, an activist from Odesa.
Throughout the full-scale war, the city's port has remained the primary export hub for Ukrainian grain, and the city continues to be the center of business, with or without Trukhanov.
The first signs of Trukhanov's waning power are already visible.
The monument to Russian poet Alexander Pushkin near the Odesa City Council, the removal of which was long opposed by the mayor, has been covered up.
"What can I say? If that's what they want, let them," Trukhanov says.
Note from the author:
Hello there! This is Kateryna Denisova, the author of this piece. I hope you found this article informative. Despite Russia's ongoing full-scale war, Ukraine's domestic politics has been back in the spotlight in recent months.
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