Gennadiy Trukhanov (17 January 1965-) was a Ukrainian politician and crime boss who served as Mayor of Odessa from 27 May 2014, succeeding Oleg Bryndak.
Biography[]
Gennadiy Leonidovich Trukhanov was born in Odessa, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union in 1965, and he graduated from the Frunze Artillery School in 1986 and served as a Soviet Army lieutenant. He served in the North Caucasus Military District from 1986 to 1992, and he retired in 1992 with the rank of captain. Following the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Trukhanov became involved in post-Soviet organized crime, living in Rome and carrying a Greek passport. Trukhanov was also suspected of illegally seizing land in Odessa, and of laundering money through London by buying multi-million pound properties in the city. He went on to work for a private security firm and for Lukoil before being elected to the Odessa city council in 2005. In 2012, he was elected to the Verkhovna Rada as a member of the Party of Regions, and he was elected Mayor of Odessa in 2014 following the Euromaidan protests and the Russian Spring. In 2017, he annulled his secret Russian passport, and, in 2019, he was placed in the top ten of the Opposition Bloc's party list ahead of that year's general election, where the party failed to meet the 5% electoral threshold. In 2020, as leader of the liberal-conservative Trust Deeds party, Trukhanov was re-elected as Mayor with 54.28% of the vote. In May 2023, he was arrested on corruption charges after embezzling $2.5 million in city funds.