Ukrainian media reported Tuesday that Anastasiia Berezovska, the Ukrainian woman suspected of planting the bomb that exploded last week in Monaco and seriously wounded Ukrainian oligarch Vadym Yermolaiev, his partner and her 13-year-old son, was found dead near Kyiv.
The Ukrainian news site Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing law enforcement sources, that Berezovska had been shot and that her body was found Monday at around 11 p.m. local time. The report said two suspects were detained after her body was discovered. One is an officer in the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, known as HUR, and the other is a former law enforcement officer.
Berezovska, 39, had been named last week as the main suspect in the attempted assassination in Monaco. Interpol issued a red notice seeking help from police forces across Europe in locating her. In the warrant, Interpol described her as a Ukrainian citizen who speaks German and is wanted by Monaco authorities on suspicion of attempted murder, planting an explosive device in a public place with criminal intent and criminal conspiracy.
The blast in Monaco occurred last Monday outside the luxury apartment building “Sun Palace,” where 58-year-old Yermolaiev lived. Also wounded were Anna Nasobina, 46, described in several reports as his partner, and her 13-year-old son Ariel.
Anastasiia Berezovska
(Photo: Monaco prosecutor/Handout via REUTERS)
According to the investigation, Berezovska placed the explosive device in a backpack at the entrance to the building and detonated it remotely by mobile phone shortly before 9 p.m. from several meters away. Nasobina lost both legs in the blast, while she and Yermolaiev suffered serious shrapnel wounds and burns. The boy was less seriously wounded, mainly by burns and shrapnel.
Initial reports said the woman badly wounded alongside Yermolaiev was his wife, Anna Yermolaieva, 56. It later emerged that she was not in Monaco at the time and that the woman with him was Nasobina, who has been described in various reports both as his mistress and as his common-law partner, though he remains married to Yermolaieva.
Person suspected to be Anastasiia Berezovska
Security camera footage showed Berezovska fleeing the scene after allegedly detonating the bomb, wearing a black cap in what investigators suspect was an attempt to appear male. She later escaped on foot into France, which has no border control posts with Monaco, and from the nearby French town of Beausoleil apparently continued to Italy. There had been speculation that she traveled from there to the Balkans, but the latest reports indicate she eventually reached Ukraine.
A source involved in the investigation warned last week that Berezovska was “armed and dangerous,” and that investigators believed she was likely being assisted by accomplices.
Last week, the British tabloid Daily Mail reported that while some theories pointed to the possible involvement of Ukraine’s Security Service, known as the SBU, a criminal settling of accounts still appeared to be the main direction of the investigation.
Yermolaiev had accumulated many enemies over the years, and one of the reasons he moved to Monaco was the security the principality offered. Siar Korshutov, a Ukrainian businessman from Crimea who now spends much of his time in Monaco, told Le Monde that his friend Yermolaiev had been “obsessed with security.”
“Vadym lived on the edge of a knife,” Korshutov said.
(Photo: REUTERS/Alexandre Dimou)
Ukrainian police said last week that the oligarch may have been targeted because of his alleged links to a 100 million-euro call-center fraud scheme in Dnipro. According to police sources, the violent attack was directly connected to those call centers, which were allegedly used to carry out large-scale financial fraud across Europe. Reports said Yermolaiev’s family played a significant role in the scheme and that the oligarch’s name was at the center of a broad European investigation into the call centers.
At the end of 2025, Yermolaiev’s eldest son, Artur Yermolaiev, 35, was arrested in Cyprus over his role in the scheme. He was extradited to Estonia, where about 500 customers each lost around 5 million pounds, and was sentenced to five years in prison. Korshutov said he now lives in Israel.
Monaco
(Photo: shutterstock)
In another case linked to the affair, 28-year-old businessman Igor Komarov, who was involved in the call-center activity, was kidnapped, tortured, murdered and dismembered while on vacation on the Indonesian island of Bali in March. A security source said “the killers were never found,” adding that the case “gives an idea of the kind of enemies Yermolaiev was dealing with.”
Ukrainska Pravda reported last week that the assassination attempt on Yermolaiev stemmed from a failed agreement over the division of territory and alleged unpaid debts to organized crime bosses in Dnipro.
Monaco is a famous tax haven on the French Riviera and home to some of the world’s wealthiest people. The principality prides itself on a reputation for being almost crime-free, attracting businesspeople, billionaires and celebrities from around the world. In recent years, however, it has been linked to several corruption scandals, including allegations of money laundering by mafia-style gangs, some of them originating in Ukraine.
Monaco’s prime minister, Christophe Mirmand, said last week that the attempted assassination of Yermolaiev was “the first time in history that something like this has happened here.”