Zelensky vs Odessa

Zelensky's anti-mayor jihad. SBU vs CIA. Sternenko, Azov, Zaluzhny, Budanov. The Flamingo scam, energy crisis.

On October 14, Zelensky decided to remove Ukrainian citizenship from mayor of Odessa, Gennadiy Trukhanov.

Is it finally over for this wily operator? Trukhanov has managed to stay in power since 2014 despite endless criminal cases, imprisonments, and constant accusations of being a Russian fifth columnist.

Mayor Trukhanov. And yes, his enemies do indeed call him a mafia lord

The official rationale given was that Zelensky’s Security Services of Ukraine (SBU) found that the Odessan mayor still had a Russian passport. Trukhanov, in turn, promised to fight the decision in court, and refuses to step down in favor of Zelensky’s chosen successor, SBU general Sergey Lysak.

Trukhanov won the sympathies of Odessans three times, securing the position of mayor in the 2014, 2015, and 2020 elections. But Lysak’s long experience of ‘finding spies’ in Ukraine’s civil war is clearly more in demand by the president. As we will see, some also point to the SBU’s well-known appetite for devouring corruption rents, which the port city Odessa certainly does not lack.

General Lysak

Attempting to bring ever-skeptical nationalist civil society on his side against the ‘Russophile fifth columnist Trukhanov’, Zelensky’s decision and its aftermath raises a number of questions.

First, why did Zelensky act now, given the fact that the topic of Trukhanov’s possession of a Russian passport has been brought up many times before? The story had great publicity already in 2015, 2015, and 2020. He was even briefly imprisoned in 2023 for a supposed corruption scandal, only to soon re-emerge. Why has this seemingly unsinkable ship finally been unmoored from Odessa’s long-suffering port?

Second, why target Trukhanov in particular, given the fact that just about every Ukrainian politician has a mix of Russian, Israeli, and Cypriot passports to begin with? In the words of the great Igor Kolomoisky (Ru+Ukr+Cyp), ‘the constitution forbids dual citizenship, but says nothing about triple!’

In examining this aspect of the Trukhanov affair, we’ll examine Zelensky’s wartime predilection for getting rid of excessively popular or independent mayors. We will also look at Trukhanov’s links to Zelensky’s top enemies - ex-head of the army Zaluzhny, top western-aligned spook Budanov, and the neo-nazi Azov ‘family’.

Third, what accounts for the unhappy reaction among Ukraine’s nationalist ‘civil society’? They always loved hating on the evil Trukhanov. And why are the likes of London’s Bellingcat claiming that Zelensky’s ‘proof’ of Trukhanov’s Russian passport is fake?

As we’ll see, at stake is a conflict between the intelligence services of Ukraine and the west. Ukrainian spooks have an excessively voracious appetite.

Timing

There a range of reasons why Zelensky is eager to refocus public attention at the moment.

These include the worsening tides of war, the looming electricity crisis, and increasing signs that Zelensky’s drone and missile wunderwaffen are all a costly scam.

First of all, the war is changing. Not just in terms of the amount of land taken, but in the shape of the frontline.