On July 7, the body of 39-year-old Ukrainian national Anastasia Berezovska was found near Kyiv. She was suspected of plotting an assassination attempt against Ukrainian-Cypriot businessman Vadym Yermolaiev, who is originally from the city of Dnipro, in Monaco.
A few days later, two men with ties to Ukraine’s intelligence services were arrested on suspicion of killing Berezovska. What is known about the case, which could result in life sentences for the suspects and trigger an international scandal for Ukraine?
Murder of an assassination suspect
Prosecutors in Monaco believe Berezovska attempted to kill Yermolaiev, his partner and their 13-year-old son. All three were injured when an explosive device detonated on the evening of June 29.
After reviewing surveillance footage, investigators concluded that Berezovska had monitored the victims over an extended period of time. She eventually placed a backpack containing explosives at the entrance to their home. The device was detonated remotely using a cellphone. Immediately afterward, she left the French Riviera. On July 6, her body was found in a forest near Kyiv.
Berezovska lived with her son in Hofheim, near Frankfurt, Germany. After fleeing Ukraine, she was granted temporary protection in Germany. According to a relative, she and her son lived modestly, relied on social benefits and were learning German.
Before moving to Germany, Berezovska had spent her entire life in Ukraine, first in the village of Horodyshche, where her mother still lives, and later in the city of Zhytomyr. Little is known about her professional background.
From Monaco to Zhytomyr
A relative told reporters that about a week before the assassination attempt, Anastasia Berezovska sent her 7-year-old son to stay with her mother in Ukraine. She herself apparently drove south from the Frankfurt metropolitan area. According to the news outlet Nice-Matin, traffic cameras captured her driving near the scene of the attack on June 26.
Immediately after the explosion, Berezovska left the French Riviera and returned to the Frankfurt region the following day. She did not stay there for long. On July 1, she crossed into Ukraine by bus and traveled to her mother’s home in the village of Horodyshche.
Meanwhile, investigators in Monaco spotted a person wearing a dark suit in surveillance footage. They suspected it was a woman disguised as a man. After reviewing additional video recordings, suspicion fell on a heavily built woman with a snake tattoo on her shoulder. The car she had been using was located in Germany, and later that same evening police in the German state of Hesse searched her vacant apartment.
The following morning, Berezovska unexpectedly asked her mother to drive her to a gas station near Zhytomyr. Her mother later told Ukrainian police that she had done so. A gas station employee told investigators he called a taxi for the woman to take her toward Kyiv. The taxi driver, in turn, said he dropped her off around 9:30 a.m. on the highway near Makariv in the Kyiv region.
By the time prosecutors in Monaco publicly identified Berezovska at a press conference about three hours later, releasing her name and photograph and placing her on an international wanted list, she was likely already dead.
Suspects with ties to Ukraine’s intelligence services
Vladyslav Reut and Vitaliy Shykovych, who were arrested on suspicion of murdering the woman, have close ties to Ukraine’s intelligence services. Until recently, Reut served with the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine (HUR), the country’s military intelligence agency. Shykovych served with the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) until April of this year. According to investigators, after returning to Ukraine, Berezovska contacted only her relatives and the two suspects by phone.
Reut confessed to killing Berezovska on the morning of July 6, when police officers searching for the missing woman came to see him. However, he later changed his testimony in court, blaming his alleged accomplice instead. Reut claimed he had tried to prevent Shykovych from carrying out the killing and said that threats from him had forced Reut to falsely confess during his initial police interview.
Shykovych declined to make any statement in court. His lawyer also avoided answering questions about his client’s relationship with Berezovska.
Who ordered the attack in Monaco?
Based on the suspects’ statements, investigators are considering the possibility that Berezovska acted as an agent for Shykovych and Reut and carried out the attack in Monaco on their instructions, either knowingly or unknowingly. If so, the two men may have killed her after the failed attack out of fear she could expose them. According to sources cited by the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, investigators suspect the two men arrested in Berezovska’s killing may also have organized the attack in Monaco. But who, if anyone, ordered it?
Shykovych’s lawyer, Anatolii Ivanov, argued in court that the explosion in Monaco was a terrorist attack that primarily benefited Russia because it discredited Ukraine’s intelligence services.
Meanwhile, some European media outlets have suggested the attack in Monaco may have been a covert operation carried out by Ukrainian intelligence. According to that theory, Kyiv targeted Vadym Yermolaiev because he is under Ukrainian sanctions over business activities on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula and was allegedly planning to deliver a speech at the European Parliament denouncing corruption in Ukraine. However, DW found that Yermolaiev had never been invited to give such a speech at the European Parliament.
Ukrainian police and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) are continuing their investigation. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office has initiated the formation of a joint international investigative team.
This article was originally published in Ukrainian.
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