Captured on video is a shocking moment when a bomb attack targeted a Ukrainian oligarch and his family outside their lavish Monaco residence.
New video footage made public by Ukraine’s prosecutor general reveals the attempted murder of real estate magnate Vadim Ermolaev, alternatively called Vadym Yermolaiev. In this chilling footage, the tycoon, along with his partner Anna Nasobina and their child, faced peril on June 29.
The presumed assailant, identified as Ukrainian national Anastasiia Berezovska, is seen on camera leading the family as they near the entrance of the Sun Palace apartments.
Moments before the family was due to enter the building, a bomb rigged with shrapnel was discreetly left inside a backpack at the entrance.
Matching Berezovska’s description, the alleged perpetrator is observed walking away nonchalantly, appearing to make a phone call, just before an enormous explosion erupts in the building’s wake.
Ms Nasobina, 46, had her legs amputated following the explosion, while both her and Yermolaiev suffered severe shrapnel wounds and burns. Their 13-year-old son, Ariel, was also injured.
The video was recorded on a surveillance camera placed close to the crime scene by the ‘perpetrators’, prosecutor general Ruslan Kravchenko has claimed.
He added the would-be assassin had tried to delete the footage but specialist investigators had been able to recover it and release it as part of their investigation.
This is the moment a Ukrainian property tycoon and his family were blown up in a bomb attack outside a luxury apartment in Monaco
The suspect, believed to be Ukrainian Anastasiia Berezovska, was captured fleeing the scene on CCTV
Vadym Yermolaiev, who was targeted in a bombing in Monaco, today accused Kyiv ’s military intelligence agency of being responsible for the attack
A huge blast is seen in the footage recorded on a surveillance camera before it cuts out
Mr Kravchenko said: ‘Thanks to the professional work of the specialists of the Security Service of Ukraine, one of the key pieces of evidence, which the suspects tried to destroy, was successfully restored.
‘This involves a video recording from the surveillance camera, which the perpetrators had previously installed near the crime scene to obtain confirmation of the order.
‘Despite the fact that this evidence was deleted, the specialists of the SBU were able to restore it.’
Ukrainian citizen Berezovska was identified as the prime suspect for the assassination attempt by Interpol, who called the 39-year-old ‘armed and dangerous’.
Footage from nearby surveillance cameras showed her wearing a black bucket hat and fleeing the scene on foot, before heading across the border to France.
Berezovska was found dead near Kyiv on July 6. Investigators said she had been shot.
She was wanted for attempted murder, placing an explosive device on a public road with criminal intent, and criminal conspiracy.
Monaco’s deputy prosecutor Morgan Raymond said she had been disguised as a man when she allegedly carried out the attack.
The suspect calmly walks off before footage captured on a surveillance camera cuts out due to a huge blast
Interpol accused Anastasiia Berezovska, a 39-year-old woman from Ukraine, of detonating the bomb
Three Ukrainian nationals including an oligarch fleeing the war against Russia were seriously wounded when a bomb exploded in the centre of Monaco (Pictured: Sun’s Palace on Rue Révérend Père Louis Frolla, where the bomb detonated)
Vladyslav Reut, a current officer with Hur, was charged with her murder and appeared in court last week alongside Vitalii Zhykovych, his co-defendant.
Zhykovych worked until recently for Kyiv’s SBU security service. Both men have denied guilt.
While Reut initially admitted to killing Berezovska, he later retracted his confession and blamed Zhykovych, whose lawyer denied the allegation.
Yermolaiev today accused Kyiv’s military intelligence agency of being responsible for the attack on him and his family.
‘Based on the investigative evidence available to us, we have no doubt that serving officers of the main intelligence directorate of the ministry of defence of Ukraine, commonly known as Hur, were directly involved in this attempted assassination,’ Yermolaiev said in a statement released by his lawyers.
He did not provide evidence for the allegation, however.
There were suspicions the bombing could be related to a network of fraudulent call centres in Dnipro, Ukraine, allegedly used to carry out large-scale financial scams across Europe.
The family is alleged to have played a significant role in the scheme, with the oligarch’s name reportedly at the centre of a sprawling pan-European investigation into clandestine call centres operating out of Ukraine.
Anna Nasobina, his mistress, is understood to have lost both legs in the explosion
Vladyslav Reut appeared in a Kyiv court last week over the murder of Anastasiia Berezovska
According to sources, the so-called ‘boiler room’ operations defrauded thousands of investors in Germany, Estonia and Ukraine of more than €100m (£86m) between 2019 and 2022, through fake cryptocurrency investment schemes.
The network also allegedly sold fraudulent divorce advice to unsuspecting victims.
Yermolaiev, a property developer, named by Forbes magazine in 2020 as the 39th richest Ukrainian, has a fortune of USD 230million (GBP 172million).
Kyiv has sanctioned him since 2023 over interests in wine and alcohol in Russia-occupied Crimea.
He described how Nasobina had suffered ‘catastrophic and irreversible injuries’ while their son sustained burns, fractures and other serious injuries.
‘I remain in intensive care and am only now beginning the long process of recovery,’ he added.
‘This was not a warning. It was an attempt to kill not only me, but my family as well.’
The explosion was so powerful that it tore through steel railings and destroyed stone steps outside their property, he said.