A Ukrainian military intelligence officer confessed to killing a woman suspected of attempting to assassinate a businessman in Monaco last week, the Prosecutor’s Office and the Security Service (SBU) said on Tuesday.
The woman, identified last week as 39-year-old Anastasiia Berezovska, was suspected of carrying out a bomb attack in Monaco and was found shot dead in Ukraine, police said, adding that an active intelligence officer and an accomplice had been detained on suspicion of her murder.
In a statement, Ukraine’s national police said officers had “detained two individuals on suspicion of murdering a woman who was wanted by Interpol,” identifying her as “Ukrainian citizen Anastasiia Berezovska.”
The announcement comes after authorities across Europe were hunting for the woman suspected of planting a bomb in Monaco that wounded three people, including a Ukrainian-born tycoon and his teenaged son.
Berezovska was wanted in Monaco for attempted murder after she allegedly placed an explosive device on a public road with criminal intent and criminal conspiracy over the explosion on Monday, according to an Interpol Red Notice.
German law enforcement said they searched her rented apartment near the western city of Frankfurt last Thursday.
After the explosion, she is believed to have walked to the nearby French town of Beausoleil, where she retrieved her rental car and drove through Italy to Germany, her last known country of residence, Morgan Raymond, Monaco’s deputy public prosecutor, told reporters.
“The relative sophistication of the explosive device and the modus operandi appear to indicate that the person who planted the device did not act alone,” the prosecutor said, confirming that the individual was “a woman posing as a man.”
Eric Arella, Monaco’s police chief, said the suspect was identified in 53 hours thanks to “an exceptional mobilisation by Monaco’s public security personnel,” also stressing cooperation with countries including France.
Ukrainian authorities said they had launched an investigation since the woman and child were Ukrainian citizens.
The bombing sent shockwaves through Monaco, a generally secure microstate near Nice in southern France that is a playground of the world’s ultra-rich. Prince Albert II has described the attack as a “heinous crime.”
Tattoo on right arm
Authorities have not confirmed the victims’ identities, but according to several sources, the attack targeted Vadym Yermolaiev, 58, a wealthy businessman originally from Ukraine and now a Cypriot national, as well as his partner and his 13-year-old son.
In 2021, the Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $220 million (€192 million), ranking him the country’s 45th richest person.
On Monday evening, an individual left a package in the entrance hall of an apartment building near the French border.
Shortly afterwards, an explosive device went off in the hall just as three residents, a couple and a child, were entering.
The suspect, who was captured on CCTV wearing a black fisherman’s hat, was initially believed to be a man.
But a review of surveillance footage and testimony from a person who came into contact with the suspect led investigators to focus on a woman who had allegedly conducted several reconnaissance visits in the days before the explosion, Raymond said.
On the evening of the attack, she is thought to have waited on a bench before placing an explosive device, taken out of a shopping bag, at the entrance of the building.
At 8:58 pm, she detonated it remotely as the trio returned from dinner.
The suspect with dark shoulder-length hair appeared in two photographs released by Interpol.
The notice said the woman has a tattoo on her right arm, “possibly” depicting a snake, and that she spoke German.
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