Vadym Iermolaiev, a Ukrainian-born businessman who holds Cypriot citizenship, has accused active and former officers of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, the GUR, of being behind the Monaco bomb attack that seriously injured him and left his partner in critical condition.
In his first public statement since the bombing, released by his lawyers, Iermolaiev said: “Based on the investigative evidence available to us, we have no doubt that serving officers of the main intelligence directorate of the ministry of defence of Ukraine, commonly known as the GUR, were directly involved in this attempted assassination.”
French investigators identified Anastasiia Berezovska as the suspect who planted the bomb, charging the Ukrainian national with placing an explosive device in a public place with criminal intent. The bomb exploded as Iermolaiev was leaving an apartment building with his partner and their 13-year-old son.
Days after the attack, Berezovska was found dead near Kyiv. Ukrainian authorities arrested two suspects over her killing: Vladyslav Reut, a GUR officer, and Oleksandr Zhikovych, a former law enforcement official.
Appearing before a Kyiv court last Thursday, Reut claimed Zhikovych was responsible for Berezovska’s murder. According to prosecutors, the two men forced her at gunpoint into a car before taking her to a forest near the village of Yuriv, around 60 kilometres west of the capital, where they killed her.
Ukrainian prosecutors have sought to present the case as the isolated act of a rogue intelligence officer, alleging that Reut concealed his contacts with Berezovska and acted without the knowledge or approval of the service’s leadership.
Iermolaiev rejected that account, saying in his statement: “According to the evidence currently available, the conspiracy extended beyond the direct perpetrators and organisers to include serving GUR officers connected to them, including individuals close to the agency’s current and former leadership.”
The businessman said the explosion “was powerful enough to tear apart steel railings and destroy the stone steps outside our home. This was not a warning. It was an attempt to kill not only me, but my family as well.”
He said his partner, Anna, had sustained “catastrophic and irreversible injuries,” while their son suffered burns, fractures and other serious injuries. “I remain in intensive care and am only now beginning the long process of recovery,” he added.
Political implications for Kyiv
The case has proven embarrassing for Volodymyr Zelenskyy and could strain Ukraine’s relations with its European partners if claims of GUR involvement and direct knowledge by its leadership gain further credibility. The case comes at a politically sensitive time for the Ukrainian president, who faces criticism over his decision to dismiss widely respected Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov.
The motive behind the assassination attempt remains unclear. In 2023, Ukraine imposed sanctions on Iermolaiev, one of the country’s richest people, with his fortune estimated by Forbes at 220 million dollars. Kyiv accused him of continuing to trade alcohol in Russian-occupied Crimea and of paying millions of dollars in taxes to the Russian state treasury.
Ukraine has carried out numerous lethal operations using explosive devices against senior Russian military officials and pro-Russian Ukrainian officials inside Russia, but there is no precedent for a similar attack on European soil. Iermolaiev was not known for holding pro-Russian views, nor had he publicly sided with the Kremlin.
Another theory links the bombing to organised crime, suggesting that members of Ukraine’s military intelligence service were recruited to carry out a contract killing. Iermolaiev’s adult son, Artur, has been accused by Ukrainian authorities of forming a criminal organisation involved in large-scale telephone fraud in his father’s hometown of Dnipro. These phone fraud networks have long been linked to organised crime groups, although there is no evidence publicly connecting these allegations to the Monaco bombing.
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