Monaco bombing suspect found dead in Ukraine as intelligence officer confesses to killing

Monaco likes to present itself as a place where money, discretion and security all sit neatly at the same table. Last week, that image cracked. Now the case has taken an even darker turn: Ukrainian prosecutors and the Security Service of Ukraine, the SBU, say a Ukrainian military intelligence officer has confessed to killing Anastasiia Berezovska, the woman suspected of planting the bomb in the principality.

The Ukrainian national police said two people had been detained on suspicion of murdering a woman wanted by Interpol, whom they identified as Ukrainian citizen Anastasiia Berezovska. She was 39. Her body was found in Ukraine after authorities across Europe had been searching for her in connection with the Monaco explosion, which injured three people, among them a wealthy Ukrainian-born businessman and his teenage son.

The chain of events reads like the kind of international crime file that keeps prosecutors busy and everyone else mildly astonished. According to the Interpol Red Notice, Berezovska was wanted in Monaco for attempted murder after allegedly placing an explosive device on a public road with criminal intent and criminal conspiracy. German law enforcement searched her rented apartment near Frankfurt last Thursday, while Monaco investigators traced her movements through France, Italy and Germany, her last known country of residence.

Monaco’s deputy public prosecutor, Morgan Raymond, said she was believed to have walked to Beausoleil after the explosion, collected her rental car and driven on to Germany. He also said the sophistication of the device and the method used suggested she had not acted alone. Monaco’s police chief, Eric Arella, said the suspect had been identified in 53 hours thanks to what he called an exceptional mobilisation of public security personnel, with help from France and other countries. Prince Albert II described the attack as a heinous crime.

Authorities have not officially named the victims, but several sources say the target was Vadym Yermolaiev, a 58-year-old businessman originally from Ukraine and now a Cypriot national, along with his partner and his 13-year-old son. In 2021, Ukrainian Forbes estimated Yermolaiev’s fortune at $220 million, placing him among the country’s richest people. That detail matters less for the police file than for the uncomfortable fact that Monaco’s reputation as a secure playground for the ultra-rich did not survive contact with a shopping bag and a remote detonator.

Investigators first believed the suspect was a man, after CCTV showed a person in a black fisherman’s hat. But surveillance footage and witness testimony later led them to focus on a woman who had allegedly carried out reconnaissance visits before the blast. Interpol said she had dark shoulder-length hair, a tattoo on her right arm that may have depicted a snake, and that she spoke German. On the evening of the attack, she is thought to have waited on a bench before placing the device at the entrance of the building and detonating it at 8:58 pm, just as three residents returned from dinner.

Ukrainian authorities said they opened their own investigation because both the woman and the child were Ukrainian citizens. That is the awkward reality of modern transnational crime: the borders are still there, but the suspects are not obliged to respect them. What begins as an explosion in Monaco can end, days later, with an intelligence officer in Ukraine admitting to murder.

Written by Andreas Hofer andreas.hofer@alpineweekly.com