A high-stakes international thriller just ended in a messy execution near Kyiv. Anastasiia Berezovska, the 39-year-old woman accused of disguising herself as a man to plant a bomb in a luxury Monaco apartment building, is dead. Ukrainian prosecutors found her body on Monday night with gunshot wounds to the head.
This isn't just a simple murder case. The plot thickens because the people arrested for her execution aren't street thugs. One is an active-duty officer in Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, known as the HUR. The other is a former law enforcement official. Don't forget to check out our previous article on this related article.
For Kyiv, the timing is disastrous. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy just arrived at a NATO summit to beg Western allies for more air defense systems and weapons. Instead of focusing entirely on Russian aggression, Ukrainian officials are now forced to explain why an active military intelligence officer carried out a hit on a prime suspect wanted by Interpol on European soil.
The Disguise and the Monaco Blast
The whole mess started on June 29 in the hyper-secure, tax-friendly paradise of Monaco. The tiny principality prides itself on absolute safety for the global elite. That illusion shattered when a remote-controlled parcel bomb exploded in the lobby of a luxury residential building. To read more about the background of this, The Guardian provides an excellent breakdown.
The target was Vadym Yermolaiev, a 58-year-old Ukrainian-born real estate tycoon from Dnipro who holds Cypriot citizenship. Forbes ranked him among Ukraine’s wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of $230 million. The blast seriously injured Yermolaiev and his partner, Hanna Nasobina. Their 13-year-old son sustained minor injuries.
Local doctors had to amputate both of Nasobina’s legs due to massive blood loss. She remains in critical condition and might lose her sight, hearing, and speech. Yermolaiev was initially in a coma but has since regained consciousness.
French and Monégasque investigators quickly tracked the bomber. Security footage showed a person disguised as a man planting the device shortly before 9 p.m. Investigators soon realized the man was actually Berezovska in a disguise. She was a dark-haired Ukrainian national who lived in Germany, spoke fluent German, and had a massive snake tattoo stretching from her right shoulder down to her elbow.
Monaco’s deputy public prosecutor, Morgan Raymon, revealed that Berezovska fled the principality on foot immediately after the blast. She crossed the border into France, jumped into a car, and drove through Italy to Germany. By July 1, she crossed back into Ukraine.
A Murder in the Suburbs and a Secret Basement
Once Berezovska arrived in Ukraine, she didn't lay low. She immediately contacted her family and two men who had been transferring large amounts of cash and cryptocurrency to her bank accounts. Ukrainian cyber investigators were already tracking those digital transactions, linking her directly to the two suspects.
On Monday night around 11 p.m., police discovered Berezovska’s body in a wooded area near Kyiv. Investigators found spent pistol cartridge casings scattered near her head.
The security service, known as the SBU, moved fast. They arrested the active HUR intelligence officer and his accomplice. During a raid on the former law enforcement officer's house, investigators uncovered a horrifying detail. The basement had been converted into what prosecutors described as a torture chamber. Footage released by the state showed a dark room with axes, hatchets, and a heavy green tarpaulin laid out across the floor.
The serving HUR officer cracked during interrogation. He confessed to planning and executing Berezovska alongside the former cop. He claims he acted entirely on his own discretion. He insists he never told his bosses at the intelligence agency about his ties to Berezovska, the crypto payments, or the murder plot.
Whether you believe that an active intelligence officer went rogue to fund and then kill an international bomber is up to you. But the official line from Kyiv is clear: this was a private criminal enterprise, not a state-sponsored hit.
The Sanctions and the Monaco Battalion
To understand why anyone wanted Yermolaiev dead, you have to look at his messy history with the Ukrainian government. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, a group of ultra-wealthy Ukrainian oligarchs and politicians fled to the French Riviera to escape the war. Independent Ukrainian journalists mockingly labeled this group the "Monaco battalion."
Yermolaiev was a prominent member of that crowd. In 2023, Ukraine slapped heavy economic sanctions on him. The government accused him of maintaining highly lucrative business links with Russian entities in occupied Crimea, the territory Russia illegally grabbed in 2014.
This creates a complicated web of potential motives. Did a rogue faction within Ukraine’s security apparatus decide to take out a sanctioned tycoon using an asset they later had to silence? Or did Russian intelligence orchestrate the hit to blame Ukraine and drive a wedge between Kyiv and its Western allies? Or maybe it was just a brutal dispute over millions of dollars in dirty business.
Ukraine has run brilliant, lethal sabotage operations inside Russia against Kremlin officials and military leaders. But executing a bombing inside a peaceful European Union border zone is a completely different story. German prosecutors recently accused Ukrainian state actors of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, meaning Western European intelligence agencies are already on high alert regarding Ukrainian operations within their borders.
What This Means for International Security
This case blows a massive hole in the narrative that Ukraine has its internal corruption and organized crime fully under control. Kyiv is aggressively pushing for European Union membership. To get in, they must prove their judicial and security systems are clean.
A rogue military intelligence officer running a transnational assassination squad that uses torture chambers in suburban basements is a terrible look. It validates the fears of skeptical European politicians who worry about weapons and intelligence assets bleeding into the European criminal underworld.
Ukrainian prosecutors emphasize they are sharing all their files, crypto trails, and forensic data with investigators in Monaco. They want to show total transparency to minimize the political fallout. Prince Albert II of Monaco called the bombing an "odious act" and mobilized every resource in his kingdom to get answers. He won't let this drop quietly.
If you are tracking international security or looking at how this impacts global markets and political alliances, the next steps are clear. Watch the upcoming NATO briefings closely to see if Western leaders publicly address this security breach. Keep an eye on European border security policies, as this escape route through France, Italy, and Germany will likely trigger tighter travel scrutiny for Ukrainian nationals entering the EU. Finally, monitor the crypto wallets linked to the case; asset tracing firms will likely publish the exact addresses used, which provides a rare blueprint of how modern contract killers fund their operations across borders. This story is far from over, and the geopolitical fallout is just beginning.
