The manhunt continues, chiefly focused in France or also nearby Italy, for the culprit who committed a Monday parcel bomb attack on an exiled Ukrainian oligarch and his family at their luxury apartment building in Monaco.
The victims - Vadym Iermolaiev, his 'partner' (or wife, according to contradictory reports) and his 13-year-old child, all survived the bombing, with Iermolaiev and his partner having sustained serious injuries and in critical condition. The suspected would-be assassin was seen fleeing to the French border, after which "Dozens of officers were deployed in Monaco, while two helicopters and some 30 gendarmes scoured neighboring France for a man who left a package in a residential building near the border, according to the police and gendarmerie."
Given that Iermolaiev had long ago been declared an enemy of the Ukrainian state, and has been under sanctions for years for his extensive business dealings in Crimea, Ukrainian intelligence is coming under the spotlight for possible involvement in the Monaco bomb attack - a first of its kind in the small, wealthy principality.
Le Figaro is reporting that the investigation focuses on Zelensky's secret police (SBU) in the Monaco bomb attack: "According to several concurring sources at Le Figaro, investigators are focusing on the possibility that the attack was orchestrated by the SBU, the Ukrainian intelligence service."
The report continues, "Vadim Ermolaev, a wealthy businessman residing in Monaco since 2021, as the magistrate specified, had distanced himself from his native country, exchanging his Ukrainian citizenship for a Cypriot passport in 2019, before being targeted by personal sanctions imposed by Kyiv in December 2023."
And Le Figaro notes further:
According to our information, the attack appears to have been more of a "warning" than a deliberate attempt at murder.
However, police did call it a "powerful explosion" - so significant that parts of Iermolaiev's partner (or wife's) legs were lost, reports said.
According to more background of the Ukrainian tycoon's past:
“Iermolaiev is a real estate developer who was born and raised in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. His company, the Alef Group, also has interests in agriculture and vodka production. In 2018 the oligarch gave up his Ukrainian passport and acquired EU citizenship from Cyprus. As well as Monaco, he is a frequent visitor to London and Paris.
In 2022, the newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda identified the oligarch as a member of the “Monaco battalion”, an ironic reference to wealthy Ukrainians who live in comfort abroad while their fellow citizens experience daily Russian drone and missile attacks. Iermolaiev enjoyed the high life and drove a £250,000 Bentley Flying Spur, it noted.
The following year, Ukraine imposed personal sanctions on Iermolaiev after an investigation by the country’s SBU security agency. It said the 58-year-old oligarch continued to trade alcohol in occupied Crimea and paid millions of dollars in taxes to the Russian treasury. His assets were frozen and he was prohibited from doing business.
While Russia has long been accused of deploying intelligence-linked assassin squads in Europe to hunt down political enemies, there's lately been increasingly acknowledgement that Ukraine has been engaged in its own 'dirty war' of assassination hits, both within and outside of Russia.