Monaco Bombing Suspect Found Shot Dead in Ukraine; Intelligence Officer Arrested

A woman who was the subject of an Interpol manhunt for a bombing in Monaco last week has been found dead in Ukraine. Anastasiya Berezovska, 39, was discovered with a gunshot wound to the head near the capital Kyiv late on Monday evening, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine. Berezovska was wanted by Monegasque authorities on charges of attempted murder using a homemade bomb on 29 June. Authorities have detained two men suspected of her execution; one is an active employee of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) and the other is a former police officer. Digital tracking revealed the two suspects had been in intensive communication with Berezovska since she returned to Ukraine on 1 July and had transferred funds to her bank account and cryptocurrency wallets. During interrogation, the HUR employee confessed to killing Berezovska with the other suspect. In addition to finding pistol shell casings near the scene, police searching the ex-officer’s home discovered a basement room designed as a torture chamber. The Prosecutor General’s Office stated the intelligence officer acted on his own initiative without informing his superiors. The bombing in Monaco targeted property developer Vadym Yermolaiev, a Ukrainian-born Cypriot citizen, and his family, leaving them seriously injured. Yermolaiev was sanctioned by Ukraine in 2023 for allegedly continuing illegal business activities in Russian-annexed Crimea. Before she was killed, Berezovska had evaded authorities by fleeing Monaco on foot into France and then travelling by car through Italy and Germany back to Ukraine. Ukrainian prosecutors have shared their investigation files with Monegasque authorities to help identify the mastermind behind the attack.