[4] In March 2015 Tereshchenko was granted Ukrainian citizenship by President Petro Poroshenko, and in October of the same year he was elected as mayor of Hlukhiv.

Terestchenko's campaign was based on solving corruption and establishing Hlukhiv as a leading city of historical tourism in Europe, as well as strengthening democracy within Ukraine.

[4] He won the mayoral election with 64.58% of the vote, a two-to-one margin over his next-closest candidate (incumbent Yurii Burlaka, a Party of Regions politician tied to Andrii Derkach).

[5] Tereshchenko's victory was widely celebrated on Ukrainian social media, with one user referring to it as "miraculous news".

[3] Tereshchenko struggled to reform Hlukhiv's smuggling-based economy over the next two years, something he attributed to the status of entrenched elites in the city.