Interpol issues red notice for Ukrainian woman wanted for Monaco apartment bombing targeting oligarch

The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) issued a red notice Friday for Anastasiia Berezovska, a 39-year-old Ukrainian national suspected of bombing a Monaco apartment building that reportedly targeted a Russian-linked Ukrainian oligarch.

The June 30 apartment building explosion, according to numerous media reports, injured Vadym Yermolaiev, a Ukrainian-born construction magnate.

While declining to identify any of the victims by name, Monaco public prosecutor Stéphane Thibault also revealed the explosion injured a woman and a 13-year-old child in the apartment who media reports widely claim to be members of Yermolaiev’s family.

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Berezovska, according to Interpol, is now wanted on charges of attempted murder, depositing an explosive device on a public highway with criminal intent and criminal association.

Interpol identified the Ukrainian national as a dark-haired German-speaking woman who possibly has a tattoo of a snake on her arm.

The 39-year-old suspect was initially believed to be a heavy-set man. Monaco Deputy Prosecutor Morgan Raymond even initially referred to the suspect in masculine terms.

“He stood up a few meters ahead of the victims, placed an explosive device taken from his shopping bag on the entrance steps of the building, then turned to confirm the presence of the three victims before triggering the explosion using a remote control,” Raymond said at an initial news conference after the incident.

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Prosecutors reviewed footage of the days leading up to the explosion, finding that a man wearing a fishing hat repeatedly cased the apartment building and surrounding area. However, on June 28, the man was absent from security footage. Instead, a woman — who prosecutors now believe to be Berezovska — followed the same patterns as the man.

“The repeated reconnaissance operations and the pauses made in front of the building clearly demonstrate the intention to specifically target the three victims,” Raymond said.

Investigators tracked her escape across the Monaco-France border, through Italy and into Germany, where authorities are now actively looking for her. They raided her Frankfurt apartment Thursday.

Raymond noted that the sophistication of her explosive device gives prosecutors reason to believe she did not act alone.

“The relative sophistication of the explosive device and the modus operandi appear to indicate that the person who placed the device was not acting alone,” Morgan said.

Though authorities have provided no motive, Yermolaiev’s status as a sanctioned former Ukrainian is notable.

The 58-year-old construction tycoon renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2017, Ukrainian media reported, and has been a citizen of Cyprus since 2019. 

In 2023, the Ukrainian government sanctioned him for allegedly continuing to engage with Russia, paying taxes to Moscow and facilitating business transactions through his liquor business in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014.