The Insider: A copy of Trukhanov's Russian passport is a fake

A copy of the foreign passport of Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov, published by the Security Service of Ukraine on October 14, is fake. This is stated in the investigation of The Insider.

According to journalists, Trukhanov did indeed have two Russian passports. The number of the first one starts with 4604 and it is listed in Russian databases as issued on April 15, 2003, but lost.

The number of the second one starts with the digits 4611 and it was issued on March 24, 2011 instead. And the application for this passport, which is at the disposal of The Insider, contains a note "in connection with the achievement of the age of 45".

But it was the copy of the Russian passport that the journalists called a fake. Judging by the number, the document was issued on November 2, 2010, not in December 2015. The investigation found that a passport with the corresponding number was indeed issued on that day, but to a Russian woman named Tatiana.

The journalists claim that the woman traveled with this passport and it appeared in the databases. They also pointed out a mistake by the authors of the forgery, who forgot that Gennadiy is also transliterated with two n's in Latin letters.

Referring to the border crossing data, Trukhanov has not been to Russia since the outbreak of the war in 2014. At least not under his own name. There is also no evidence that he has any valid Russian passport.

According to the investigators, if Trukhanov had decided to visit Russia after 2014, he could have faced problems. There is information in the databases that Russian special services were interested in him because of his alleged involvement in the "development of Ukrainian events in 2013-2014.".

• on October 14, a petition calling for the termination of the citizenship of Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov gained more than 25,000 votes. He was accused of having Russian citizenship.
• On the same day, a government source told LIGA.net that President Zelenskyy terminated the Ukrainian citizenship of the Odesa mayor. This was later confirmed by the SBU and showed his Russian documents, including a foreign passport issued on December 15, 2015.
• Two MPs in a commentary to LIGA.net supported the decision to terminate Trukhanov's citizenship, but noted that it should have been done in 2014.