Ukrainian intelligence officer confesses to killing suspect in Monaco murder attempt case, prosecutors say

Editor's note: This story is being updated.

A Ukrainian military intelligence officer has confessed to killing a woman suspected of attempting to assassinate businessman Vadym Iermolaiev in Monaco, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Security Service (SBU) said on July 7.

The Kyiv Independent has requested comment from Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) and will publish any response it receives.

Ukrainian authorities have found the body of Ukrainian citizen Anastasia Berezovska, whom Monaco suspects of carrying out the assassination attempt on Iermolaiev on June 29, the two agencies said in a joint statement.

Ukrainian law enforcement authorities launched an investigation into her death on July 1.

“According to investigators, (Berezovska) arrived in Ukraine on July 1, 2026,” the Prosecutor General’s Office and the SBU said. “The authorities identified the people she had been in contact with and traced her movements.”

They also said that, after returning to Ukraine, Berezovska had been in contact with her family, a former law enforcement officer, and an active officer with Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR).

“Knowing that both men had repeatedly transferred money to Berezovska via cryptocurrency wallets and bank accounts, investigators examined them as possible suspects in the attempted murder in Monaco,” they said. “During urgent investigative steps, the active HUR officer confessed to killing Berezovska together with another suspect. He also said that he had not informed his superiors about his contacts with Berezovska, the money transfers, or any of his other actions, and had acted on his own initiative."

The agencies also said that "a search of the former law enforcement officer's home also uncovered a basement that appeared to have been used as a torture chamber."

"Both suspects were detained on suspicion of committing murder as part of a group acting in concert," they said.

The Prosecutor General's Office and the SBU said that law enforcement officers were preparing charges against the suspects.

The pre-trial investigation is being conducted by Ukraine's National Police with operational support from the SBU's counterintelligence department and the personal assistance of HUR chief Oleh Ivashchenko, they added.

They also said that Berezovska's body had "gunshot wounds to the head, as well as spent shell casings."

Iermolaiev, his wife and their 13-year-old son were injured in an explosion in an apartment building in Monaco on June 29. The parents were both in critical condition, while the child was reportedly stable after sustaining non-life-threatening injuries.

Iermolaiev is one of Dnipro’s wealthiest and most influential businesspeople and has assets in the agribusiness, real estate, construction materials, and medical equipment industries.

He renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2017 and has since been solely a Cypriot citizen.

According to the media outlet Ukrainska Pravda, Iermolaiev has lived in Monaco since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

In 2023, President Volodymyr Zelensky imposed sanctions on Iermolaiev.

He claimed that the sanctions had been directed against “those who aid Russia's aggression, those who assist it, and those who have chosen the disgraceful path of collaborating with the terrorist state.”

Iermolaiev himself has denied collaborating with Russia.

He had an alcoholic beverage business in Crimea and was accused of controlling it through his proxies after the peninsula’s illegal annexation by Russia in 2014. Iermolaiev denied the accusations.