You're reading: Russian passport should disqualify Trukhanov as mayor

Odesa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov has denied having Russian citizenship, yet this status has been confirmed by Russia’s Federal Tax Service. The service’s online database shows Trukhanov’s name, date of birth, Russian passport number and Russian individual tax number.

Trukhanov’s press office refused to comment on “rumors and speculation.”

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a Kyiv Post partner, has also published a copy of Trukhanov’s Russian passport and offshore documents, showing he is registered as living in the city of Sergiev Posad in Moscow Oblast.

The database on the site of Russia’s Federal Tax Service shows that Odesa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov is a Russian citizen.

Lawmakers Yegor Firsov and Volodymyr Aryev previously published what they said were documents from Russia’s Federal Migration Service showing Trukhanov has two Russian passports: one issued in Moscow Oblast and another in the republic of Dagestan.

Ukrainian law bans the voluntary acquisition of another citizenship for Ukrainian nationals, and officials are not allowed to have dual citizenship. Lawyer Vitaly Tytych told the Kyiv Post that a criminal case could be opened against Trukhanov for concealing his Russian citizenship, and his mayorship could be legally annulled.

According to an Italian police dossier published by OCCRP, Trukhanov also had a Greek passport.

He has problems with his Ukrainian passports as well. In 1998, while traveling in Germany, Trukhanov used a passport with a birth date of Jan. 17, 1967. Later that year, in Italy, he presented a passport with a birth date of Oct. 17, 1965, the dossier says.

Trukhanov has also been accused of promoting the Kremlin’s interests. Russian-backed separatists Serhiy Dolzhenkov and Dmytro Khablyuk have claimed that Trukhanov financed pro-Russian protesters in Odesa in 2014. Trukhanov denies the accusations.

Odesa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov’s passport, according to OCCRP.