She tried to blow up a millionaire in Monaco. Days later, she was dead

A Bomb on a Monaco Doorstep, a Body in a Kyiv Forest: The Unraveling of a Mysterious Plot

Earthguardiansonline.com – In a shallow grave tucked into woodland outside Kyiv, investigators uncovered the remains of a 39-year-old Ukrainian woman whose name had become the centerpiece of an international investigation. Anastasiia Berezovska, a single mother with a large snake tattoo winding up her forearm, had been identified just days earlier as the person who planted an explosive device on the entrance steps of a luxury Monaco apartment. By the time her body was pulled from the earth, roughly a week had passed since authorities confirmed her role in the attack. The sequence of events — a high-profile bombing in one of Europe’s most surveilled city-states, followed by the swift disappearance and death of the suspect — has left investigators, witnesses, and the victim himself grappling with questions that remain unanswered.

The Explosion and Its Immediate Aftermath

The blast detonated on Monday, June 29, at the doorstep of Vadym Yermolaiev’s residence in the principality of Monaco. In the instant before the shockwave reached him, Yermolaiev’s mind registered a fleeting, absurd thought: that his electronic car keys might have detonated in his own hand. The reality was far worse. His partner was thrown onto the steps, wounded. Thirteen-year-old son stood nearby, waving his bloodied arms. Panic swept through the household and rippled outward through the tightly packed, wealthy enclave on the Mediterranean coast.

Investigators initially described the suspect as a “male” wearing a “black bucket hat.” That description proved misleading. Three days after the explosion, authorities across several countries confirmed the attacker was in fact a woman — Berezovska — who had slipped across multiple borders back into Ukraine before officials even realized they were searching for a female suspect rather than a man.

Who Was Anastasiia Berezovska?

Before the bombing, Berezovska had been living as a refugee in Hofheim, a small town in the suburbs of Frankfurt, Germany. She was divorced from her first husband and separated from a second, a man thirty years her senior. A seven-year-old son was her primary responsibility. Court filings from 2022, around the period of her departure for Germany, show she had sued that second husband for alimony. Financial strain appears to have been a persistent thread in her life.

Apart from a drunken altercation in Ukraine several years earlier — one that produced no formal charges — she had no criminal record and no known personal or professional connection to Yermolaiev. Ukrainian media reported that she sent her son back to Ukraine several weeks before making the journey to Monaco. Once there, she conducted what authorities in the principality described as a careful reconnaissance of the target’s home, pausing repeatedly in front of the building between June 26 — her own 39th birthday — and the detonation three days later.

CCTV footage captured her on multiple occasions. On most visits she was disguised: the bucket hat concealing her shoulder-length dark hair, a baggy hoodie, loose trousers. On one occasion, however, she appeared in ordinary clothing, exposing her face and the prominent tattoo. Monaco investigators said that single unmasked appearance was what ultimately allowed them to identify her as the suspect.

Death in the Forest and the Question of Motive

Ukrainian sources close to the investigation told reporters they believe Berezovska was most likely a hired operative motivated by payment, though they declined to speculate on who might have commissioned the plot. Her meticulous planning — scouting the location, adopting disguises, crossing borders before the manhunt began — suggested professional preparation rather than a spontaneous act.

Her death, buried in a shallow grave in a forest near Kyiv, introduced a second layer of mystery. One of the men accused of killing her spoke to investigators, but the full circumstances of her final days have not been publicly detailed. The convergence of a targeted assassination attempt in one of Europe’s most secure jurisdictions and the subsequent elimination of the operative has raised questions about who benefits from silencing the only person who knew the plan.

The Target: A Post-Soviet Fortune and a Sanctioned Name

Vadym Yermolaiev built his wealth in Dnipro, a major city in southeastern Ukraine, during the turbulent post-Soviet years of the 1990s and early 2000s. Real estate was his primary focus, and at one point he ranked among the wealthiest Ukrainians. In 2019 he left Ukraine, renounced his Ukrainian citizenship, and became a citizen of Cyprus. He subsequently settled in Monaco, where he has lived for several years.

In December 2023, Kyiv sanctioned him for allegedly doing business in Russian-occupied Crimea. He denies the allegation. The sanction placed his name in a public register of oligarchs and businessmen accused of profiting from the occupation, a designation that carries both reputational and practical consequences for anyone operating in or near Ukrainian economic life.

A Son in the Crosshairs of European Justice

Yermolaiev’s oldest son, Artur Yermolaiev, is a recognizable figure in Ukrainian criminal circles. He was arrested in Cyprus on allegations that he headed a sprawling fraud operation and was subsequently extradited to Estonia. Estonian court documents record that in April he pleaded guilty to creating and running a telephone scam through which approximately 100 million euros (roughly $114 million) was extracted from victims across multiple European countries. The sentence was five years’ imprisonment, but a deal allowed him to be deported after serving only four months, provided he paid a fine of 8.5 million euros.

Whether the son’s criminal profile bears any connection to the Monaco bombing has not been established. Yermolaiev himself, speaking days after his release from hospital following multiple surgeries, appeared genuinely bewildled by the attack.

“I’ve never had enemies. I’m not a confrontational person. I’ve always tried to avoid any sharp conflicts. I don’t understand the reason,” he said.

For weeks after the explosion, that question — why anyone would want to kill him — has been the one he keeps returning to. The answer, if it exists in a form that can be spoken publicly, has yet to surface. What is known is the shape of the event: a woman with no visible ties to her target, hired or directed by an unseen hand, carrying a bomb into one of the world’s most watched doorsteps, and then erased from the record within days. The shallow grave near Kyiv holds the physical evidence. The deeper questions remain open.