Former mayor of Odesa Hennadii Trukhanov said that the declaring of suspicion of official negligence came as a surprise to him.
He wrote about this in a telegram.
"We worked by the minute — the city council, services, utility workers. Odessa residents were warned about the downpour, but the message from the Hydrometeorological Center arrived only when people, unfortunately, died," he said.
Exmer noted that he does not avoid responsibility, but "this was a natural disaster, the scale of which exceeded the capabilities of any system."
He explained that the drainage problem in Odesa is truly catastrophic, its solution requires billions of hryvnias of investment and state support, and the city will never cope with it alone.
Trukhanov emphasized that he was ready to provide all documents confirming the work of city services in those days.
- On October 14, the then mayor of Odesa Hennadii Trukhanov had his Ukrainian citizenship revoked because it was determined that he was a citizen of the Russian Federation and had a valid Russian passport. Ihor Koval, the secretary of the Odesa City Council, was appointed acting mayor of Odesa.
- A city military administration was also created in the city, headed by the former head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration Serhiy Lysak.
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