A Ukrainian woman wanted over a parcel bomb attack in Monaco has been found dead in Ukraine, where two men have been charged with her murder, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, said the body of Anastasiia Berezovska, 39, was discovered buried in a forest in the Kyiv region with gunshot wounds to the head. The office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general also confirmed the discovery and said the circumstances were being investigated as a premeditated killing.
Berezovska had been the subject of an international search after Monaco authorities identified her as a suspect in an explosion at an apartment building on 29 June. Three people were injured in the blast, two of them seriously, when a package detonated near the entrance shortly after 9pm local time.
Interpol had issued a red notice seeking Berezovska’s location and arrest in connection with allegations including attempted murder, placing an explosive device in a public place with criminal intent and criminal conspiracy. A red notice is an international request to police forces to locate and provisionally arrest a wanted person pending further legal proceedings.
According to the SBU, Berezovska entered Ukraine on 1 July, two days after the Monaco attack. Ukrainian prosecutors said two suspects met her in a car on a road in the Kyiv region two days later. She travelled with them for a distance before she was killed, the prosecutor general’s office said.
The SBU said Berezovska had been in contact after her return to Ukraine with her family and with two men: a former law enforcement officer and a serving officer in Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, which operates under the Ministry of Defence. Both men have since been charged with intentional murder committed by a group acting by prior agreement.
Ukrainian investigators said the two men were also being examined as possible accomplices in the Monaco bombing. The SBU said that line of inquiry was based partly on information that funds had repeatedly been transferred to Berezovska’s cryptocurrency and bank accounts.
The agency said the serving intelligence officer had admitted involvement in Berezovska’s killing and had implicated another suspect. The allegations against both men will now be considered through Ukraine’s criminal justice process.
During searches linked to the case, investigators found a basement room at the former law enforcement officer’s home in the Kyiv region. The SBU described the room as resembling a torture chamber. Ukraine’s prosecutor general later said there was no evidence connecting the room to Berezovska’s death and that footage of it had been released to illustrate the profile of one of the suspects.
Monaco’s deputy prosecutor, Morgan Raymond, has said Berezovska was believed to have watched the residence for several days before the attack and had disguised herself as a man at the time of the bombing. Police had previously released CCTV imagery of her and highlighted a distinctive tattoo on her arm, which they said could depict a snake.
After the explosion, investigators believed Berezovska left Monaco in a hire car and travelled through Italy before going on to Germany. German police said special forces had searched an apartment in the central state of Hesse that had been rented by a 39-year-old Ukrainian woman who was then being sought by authorities.
Authorities in Monaco have not publicly named the victims of the blast. Local media have reported that Ukrainian-born businessman Vadym Yermolaiev, his partner and his 13-year-old son were the people targeted. Those reports have not been formally confirmed by Monaco officials.
Yermolaiev, a real estate developer with business interests including wine and alcohol assets in Crimea, was listed by Forbes in 2020 as one of Ukraine’s wealthiest individuals, with a reported fortune of about $230m. Crimea was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. Yermolaiev has been subject to sanctions imposed by the Ukrainian government since 2023.
He is reported to have renounced Ukrainian citizenship in 2019 and to hold Cypriot citizenship. He has been living in Monaco, a small but wealthy principality on the French Riviera known for its high concentration of international residents and strict security controls.
The case has drawn attention because it links a violent attack in one of Europe’s most closely policed jurisdictions with a subsequent killing in Ukraine and the alleged involvement of a serving intelligence officer. Ukrainian authorities said they had provided all available information to Monaco and that prosecutors from the two countries were working in close co-operation.
Investigators in Ukraine and Monaco are continuing to examine whether other people were involved in the bombing. Berezovska’s death means she can no longer be questioned over the Monaco attack, but authorities say the wider investigation remains active across multiple jurisdictions.
