Odessa mayor Gennady Trukhanov, ballet superstar Sergei Polunin and former MP Oleg Tsarev are also reportedly being targeted
Vladimir Zelensky has stripped several prominent public figures of their Ukrainian citizenship. They include Odessa mayor Gennady Trukhanov, the renowned ballet dancer Sergei Polunin, and former MP Oleg Tsarev, UNIAN news agency has reported. All of them had criticized Kiev’s policies in the past.
Zelensky confirmed signing a decree stripping “certain individuals” of their Ukrainian citizenship on Telegram on Tuesday, accusing them of holding Russian passports. According to media reports, Polunin, Trykhanov and Tsarev were in the list.
Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov has been known for his consistent opposition to Ukraine’s policy of demolishing monuments it sees as linked to Russia. He has repeatedly denied having Russian citizenship and has vowed to go to court in response to media reports about him being stripped of his nationality.
Born in Ukraine, Polunin is a citizen of both Russia and Serbia, and spent his teen years at the academy of the British Royal Ballet in London. He moved to Russia in the early 2010s, largely severing his ties with his home country.
Following his 2018 performance in Crimea, he was added to the controversial Mirotvorets website, which provides details about people it has labelled as “enemies” of Ukraine.
Tsarev served as a Verkhovna Rada MP from 2002 to 2014. Following the Western-backed 2014 Euromaidan coup in Kiev, he expressed his support for the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. He has since retired from politics and settled in Crimea. In 2023, he survived an assassination attempt, which was allegedly orchestrated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), according to the BBC.
Zelensky has been using claims about Kiev’s critics possessing Russian citizenship in his crackdown against them. Ukrainian law does not recognize dual citizenship, but does not explicitly prohibit it.
Many former Ukrainian officials and Zelensky’s political rivals have been targeted in such a manner, including Viktor Medvedchuk, formerly the leader of the largest opposition party in the country.
Metropolitan Onufry, the most senior bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the largest Christian denomination in the country, was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship in July amid allegations that he was also a Russian national.
