A significant new twist has emerged in the investigation into the June 29 assassination attempt on a Ukrainian businessman in Monaco, with Ukrainska Pravda reporting that the two men accused of murdering bomb suspect Anastasiia Berezovska have allegedly confessed to also being the organisers behind the attack itself.
Vladyslav Reut, an officer with Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (GUR), and Vitalii Zhykovych, a former officer with Ukraine’s security service (SBU), were placed in custody last Thursday on suspicion of murdering Berezovska, the 39-year-old Ukrainian refugee identified by Interpol as the main suspect in the Monaco bombing. According to sources cited by Ukrainska Pravda, both men have since begun giving detailed testimony, and their accounts reportedly go further than previously known, indicating they were not only responsible for planning her killing, but were also behind the June 29 attack that seriously injured Vadym Yermolaiev outside his Monaco residence.
The original plan, according to the men’s testimony, was not to kill Yermolaiev at all. Investigators say Reut and Zhykovych initially considered kidnapping the businessman, who had settled in the Principality shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, before radically changing course.
To carry out the new plan, the men are said to have recruited Berezovska, a Ukrainian refugee living in Germany, whose primary motivation was reportedly financial. According to Ukrainska Pravda, she hoped to earn enough money to buy a house in Ukraine.
Accounts differ on exactly how the explosive device was built. One of the suspects claims Berezovska assembled the bomb herself. Reut, the military intelligence officer, has reportedly said he personally built the device’s electronic firing mechanism, disguising it inside a child’s toy car before having it transported to Germany, where Berezovska is said to have taken over the operation, possibly with the help of other accomplices. Zhykovych, however, has cast doubt on that account, telling investigators he believed Berezovska lacked the technical skill needed to assemble the explosive charge on her own.
Investigators also say Berezovska, previously unknown to authorities and the mother of a young child, may not have been acting for the first time. According to the two suspects’ statements, she had previously been involved in other operations, including one targeting Ukrainian blogger Anatolii Sharii.
Sharii, who has been accused of treason by Ukraine’s SBU, denies holding pro-Russian views and sought political asylum in Europe even before the outbreak of the war. In May 2021, Lithuania revoked the permanent residency it had previously granted him. He was arrested in Spain the following year at the request of Ukrainian authorities, and in 2024 he reported to Spanish authorities that he had been the target of an assassination attempt, saying his car had been shot at.