Investigator Grozev says Trukhanov's Russian passport is a fake, and it's to his advantage
Bulgarian media investigative journalist The Insider Khristo Grozev explained in an interview with LIGA.net, why he calls the Russian passport of the former mayor of Odesa Hennadiy Trukhanov, published by the Security Service of Ukraine, a fake. In his opinion, the use of this document will only do harm, as the former mayor will be able to appeal the decision to terminate his Ukrainian citizenship in court.
According to him, there are two reasons for this statement: first of all, a passport with such a number could not have been issued by Russia in 2015.
Grozev explained that the numbers of all biometric passports in Russia begin with the number seven, except for those issued by embassies, which begin with five. In the copy of the document published by the SSU, Trukhanov's passport number begins with seven.
The journalist noted that a biometric passport in Russia is issued only in the presence of a person – when a person can come to one of the relevant offices, provide his or her fingerprints and have a photograph taken.
He said that such a system does not store or accumulate old forms for issuing passports: that is, Trukhanov's document and the documents of people with neighboring numbers should have been issued on the same dates as the former mayor of Odesa received his passport.
However, Grozev emphasized, a check of these numbers showed that the thousands of relevant documents he and his colleagues were able to find were issued within two days of November 2, 2010.
"But the SSU shows a document that was supposed to be issued in 2015 [five years later]. This is absolutely impossible," the investigator says.
Secondly, the journalist added, he and his team managed to find the real owner of the document with the number indicated on the copy of Trukhanov's passport: a woman from Novosibirsk who traveled with this passport, issued for 10 years, from 2010 to 2020 "all over Russia, all over the world as well."
"We do not want and cannot publish her name, because in this case she is an innocent bystander whose passport was used, whose passport number was used for this fake document. For me, there is no doubt that the scan of this passport is not a real document," he explained.
Regarding the cover letter issued in April 2025 by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, which allegedly confirms that this passport was issued to Trukhanov, Grozev voiced two versions: either Moscow issued a fake confirmation ("Which is quite possible – they often do, especially when they want to create confusion and chaos"), or this document is also fake.
"First of all, I cannot and do not want to analyze why they [the SSU] wanted to use such a fake document. But here I just want to say that I do not agree with the accusations I received on Twitter from many activists from Ukraine that I am allegedly defending some pro-Russian politician," the journalist said.
According to him, the very fact that the falsity of this document is so easily proved "destroys even the legal fact of revoking his [Trukhanov's] citizenship," since sooner or later the former mayor of Odesa will be able to apply to the European Court of Human Rights.
"And it will be so obvious that it was falsified that if someone wanted to really fight a person with an ambiguous, let's say, position, this is the wrong approach. Because this approach will only help him [Trukhanov]," Grozev explained.
- Although The Insider does not recognize the authenticity of the above-mentioned document, the media confirmed that Trukhanov did indeed have two Russian passports. Meanwhile, the former mayor of Odesa denies having Russian citizenship.
- On October 14, the SSU reported that the former mayor of Odesa had been deprived of Ukrainian citizenship because of his Russian passport. Law enforcement officials say that Trukhanov continues to be a citizen of the Russian Federation (read more here).
Comments