KIEV, May 10. /TASS/. The governor of Ukraine’s Odessa Region, Mikheil Saakashvili, has criticized the newly-introduced civil service law, which prohibits officials from having dual citizenship. As a result of the new legal act two of his deputies, Maria Gaidar and Sasha Borovik, have had to quit the post of his deputies.

"Regrettably, the newly-effective law on the civil service prohibits Maria Gaidar and Sasha Borovik from being my deputies," Saakashvili said.

He argues that the new law is "half-baked, because it may strip the Ukrainian civil service of many specialists who for various reasons have dual citizenship."

"I would like to ask the people of Odessa who had cast their ballots for Maria in the elections to the regional legislature and for Sasha in the mayoral election in Odessa. Both will remain my advisers," he said.

At the beginning of May the deputy acting chief of the Odessa city administration, German citizen Sasha Borovik stepped down. He was the first official to have made such a decision in view of the new requirements. He decided to retain his German citizenship. Maria Gaidar followed suit on May 10. Earlier, she declared that she had abdicated her Russian citizenship.