Trukhanov's alleged Russian passport proof shared by SBU is fake – Insider

The SBU on Tuesday released a purported scan of a Russian foreign passport supposedly issued to Trukhanov in 2015, which it used as evidence of dual citizenship, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to terminate his Ukrainian citizenship.

But Insider’s analysis found multiple flaws: the document number indicates issuance on November 2, 2010, not December 15, 2015, as stated. The same number belongs to a different person, a Russian woman named Tatiana who used it for travel. The name “Hennadiy” is also misspelled with a single “n” in the transliteration.

Insider added that Trukhanov has not visited Russia since the 2014 conflict began, at least not under his own name, and could have faced scrutiny from Russian security services due to his role in Ukraine’s 2013-2014 events.

The outlet confirmed Trukhanov once held two internal Russian passports: one issued in 2003 and later reported lost, the second issued in 2012 by Moscow regional authorities to replace it.

In 2017, his representatives successfully petitioned a Russian court to invalidate the second internal passport.

Background

On the evening of October 12, Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov recorded a video message in which he said that there were plans to strip him of his Ukrainian citizenship.

Trukhanov noted that new alleged evidence of his Russian citizenship had been prepared by "some lawyer" who had supposedly received confirmation from the occupation authorities in Crimea.

Meanwhile, on October 13, a petition appeared on the website of the Office of the President calling for Trukhanov to be stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship. In less than a day, it garnered the necessary 25,000 votes.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he had received confirmation of the Russian citizenship of "certain individuals" and had made "appropriate decisions" regarding them, without naming names.

Subsequently, the Security Service of Ukraine confirmed that Ukrainian citizenship had been revoked from Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov, because he allegedly had Russian citizenship.

The head of state approved the creation of the Odesa City Military Administration and appointed former Dnipropetrovsk Oblast State Administration head Serhiy Lysak as its head. At the same time, Trukhanov asserted that he remains mayor.