Zelenskiy appoints new Odesa chief after voiding ex-mayor's citizenship

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday appointed a former regional governor to lead Ukraine's Black Sea port city Odesa after revoking the citizenship of the former mayor, prompting his automatic dismissal.

The appointment of Serhiy Lysak, who had led the Dnipropetrovsk region, came a day after the removal of mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov over his alleged possession of a Russian passport.

Lysak will head a newly created city military administration, a common practice in wartime Ukraine that gives the president greater power over local authorities but which has been criticised as undemocratic by some opponents.

Trukhanov, who was first elected in 2014, has denied holding Russian citizenship and said he would take his case to court. Elections are currently suspended under martial law.

Trukhanov has spoken out against the Ukrainian movement of "de-Russification" that began in 2014, when Moscow seized and annexed the Crimea peninsula, and which has accelerated since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.