Ukraine Arrests Odesa Mayor in Corruption Case
04 May 2023 ( The Moscow Times )
Ukraine on Thursday said it arrested the mayor of the Black Sea port of Odesa in a major corruption case dating from before the invasion.
Kyiv has struggled to rid itself of corruption, one of the declared aims of the 2014 Maidan revolution, with authorities for years vowing to stamp it out in efforts to join the EU.
Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau said in a statement that it arrested Gennadiy Trukhanov, who has led the historic port since 2014.
“The mayor of Odesa is taken into custody,” the war-torn country’s Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
Trukhanov is accused of “misappropriating budget funds of over 92 million Ukrainian hryvnia (2.2 million euros) as a result of a scheme to purchase” a bankrupt factory at a “twice inflated price.”
The case has been dragging on for two years, becoming one of the main corruption investigations in Ukraine.
Trukhanov was elected mayor of Odesa shortly after the Maidan revolution.
He once served as a representative of the Party of Regions, the political party of ousted pro-Moscow leader Viktor Yanukovych.
He has been considered as a highly controversial political figure for years.
Odesa was targeted by Russian strikes but Kyiv’s forces managed to fend off invading Russian forces.
Before the invasion, Odesa, the biggest Ukrainian port, was considered a global smuggling hub.
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