On Oct. 11, President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed Kyiv businessman Maksym Kutsy as the new governor of Odesa Oblast.
The previous governor of this southern Black Sea region, Maksym Stepanov, was dismissed by Zelensky’s predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, in April. Since then, Odesa Oblast was managed by Stepanov’s first deputy, Svitlana Shatalova.
Zelensky presented Kutsy during a visit to Odesa where he also met with Ukrainian soldiers. Kutsy promised to make Odesa city and Odesa oblast “a gem by the sea” and claimed he would be open for a dialogue with war veterans and civil society groups.
Odesa Oblast was one of Ukraine’s regions hit by the Russian-backed riots in 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea and started the war in eastern Ukraine. In 2015-2016, this region was governed by former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Kutsy, 36, lives in Kyiv and owns Media Partner and Digital Partnership, both advertising companies, and Service and Management, a construction firm.
He and his wife have two flats in Kyiv and a land plot near Kyiv. In 2018, Kutsy’s 2018 decleration of assets showHr 3.7 m (or about $148,000) in income for 2018 shows.
Zelensky initially picked Andriy Andreichikov as Odesa Oblast governor but changed his mind after journalists and civic activists claimed Andreychikov has shared business with pro-Russian politician Ihor Markov, who supported Russian-backed separatists and fled to Russia in 2014.
