Odesa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov and his associates are being investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine in several corruption cases.
Trukhanov’s office told the Kyiv Post it would not comment “on rumors and speculation,” but he and his associates have denied accusations before.
In February, Trukhanov and four of his associates were charged by the NABU with embezzling Hr 100 million. Trukhanov was arrested, but soon released without bail.
Trukhanov is accused of organizing a city council vote to buy the old Krayan factory administrative building for Hr 185 million ($7.04 million) in September 2016, when it had at the beginning of the year been bought by another firm for only Hr 4 million ($152,000), strongly suggesting the deal was a scheme to embezzle money from the city.
Trukhanov, then head of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions’ faction on the Odesa City Council, is also under investigation by the NABU for allegedly unlawfully selling Odesa International Airport in 2011, according to the official court register. According to the Nashi Hroshi anti-corruption watchdog, Odesa Airport Development, which bought the airport, is controlled by businessmen Oleksandr Hranovsky and Boris Kaufman, although they have denied links to the firm.
The NABU suspects Trukhanov of colluding with the firm.
The company was allowed to privatize Odesa Airport on the condition that it would invest $180 million to upgrade it. However, Odesa Airport Development took out state-guaranteed loans instead of investing its own money, placing the financial risk burden on taxpayers.
In 2015 a court cancelled the privatization as illegal, but Trukhanov concluded an amicable settlement with the airport, allowing it to transfer just part of the airport’s facilities to the city and keep the rest. The NABU estimated the losses to the state at Hr 100 million.
In 2013 the airport also concluded a Hr 1.63 billion contract with a company called Spetsrembud to upgrade its facilities. According to Nashi Hroshi, Spetsrembud is linked to Kaufman and Hranovsky but they deny the links. In 2014 prosecutors disputed the contract in court, arguing that there were blatant violations of procedure when the tender was held.
In another NABU investigation, Trukhanov and Odesa City Council are accused of embezzling funds during the purchase of the Zastava military airfield, according to the court register.
In 2016, Odesa City Council bought the Zastava military airfield for Hr 147 million from Odesa Aviation Company. According to an official request sent to the NABU by lawmaker Viktor Kryvenko, Andriy Virchenko, the owner of Odesa Aviation Company, is linked to businessman Vladimir Galanternik. A week after getting the money, Odesa Aviation Company transferred Hr 146 million to a firm called News York Corporation.
The NABU is also investigating Trukhanov for failing to declare the property of his common-law wife Tetiana Koltunova, according to the official court register. Koltunova owns a 300 square meter apartment at the Ark Palace residential complex.
Moreover, Trukhanov is under investigation over allegedly embezzling funds by inflating the price of road repairs and channeling the proceeds to offshore firms, a NABU source who was not authorized to speak to the press told the Kyiv Post.
However, Trukhanov appears to have top-level protection. In February, Chief Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Nazar Kholodnytsky told his deputy Volodymyr Kryvenko not to prosecute Trukhanov, according to tapes published by the NABU. “He’s holding Odesa by the balls and he’s making sure it stays in Ukraine,” Kholodnytsky said. “Who the (expletive) knows what will happen if someone else replaces him?”
