On the evening of June 29, 2026, a parcel bomb exploded in Monaco as Ukrainian-born businessman Vadym Yermolaiev returned from dinner with his partner and 13-year-old son. All three were badly hurt, and Yermolaiev later called their survival 'nothing short of a miracle.' Surveillance video showed a woman, Anastasiia Berezovska, leaving a bag on their doorstep shortly before the blast. She fled through Italy and Germany and then crossed into Ukraine by bus. Within days, her body was found in woods west of Kyiv, shot in the head, turning a bombing investigation into a murder inquiry as well.
The claim that the case was 'swept under the rug' and that no one is investigating is flatly contradicted by the public record. Monaco charged Berezovska with attempted murder and circulated her image through Interpol. Ukrainian authorities detained Vladyslav Reut, an active-duty officer in Ukraine's HUR military intelligence, and Vitalii Zhykovych, a former law enforcement officer, over her killing. A Kyiv court extended their pre-trial detention, and reporting by Nice-Matin in September 2026 said Monaco and Ukraine were still exchanging evidence. Monaco's Parquet general confirmed that investigative work and requests were continuing. Those are not the markings of a buried case.
The newly submitted BBC interview, published in October 2026, adds a significant but contested twist. Speaking from a Kyiv prison through his lawyer, Zhykovych alleges that Reut proposed the Monaco operation and told him it had been 'authorised and approved' by Reut's superiors in HUR. He describes Berezovska as his agent, says Reut supplied the explosives, and denies sending her to kill or killing her. But he also says Reut later told him the attack was not authorised and that someone on the 'civilian side' ordered the target, while Reut initially confessed and then changed his testimony. HUR has previously said it is committed to a full investigation. The allegation is not independently verified, and it does not establish that the Ukrainian government ordered the bombing.
What the new source does do is reinforce the verdict on the central claim. It confirms that investigations into both the Monaco bombing and Berezovska's murder were still active in October 2026, not abandoned. The claim that Monaco and France 'forgave' Kyiv is also hard to square with the evidence that Monaco and Ukraine were cooperating, even if relations were tense at times over evidence-sharing. France is not a central actor because the attack occurred in Monaco, not on French soil. The broad assertion that Kyiv can carry out terrorist attacks in Europe with impunity rests on a state-actor theory that remains unproven, while the verifiable facts show an active cross-border investigation rather than a cover-up.
