Explosion in Monaco. Court remands GUR employee suspected of murdering Anastasia Berezovska

The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv has remanded in custody the first suspect in the murder of Anastasia Berezovska, who is also suspected of attempting to assassinate businessman Vadym Yermolaev in Monaco. An employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense Vladyslav Reut will remain in pre-trial detention for two months without bail. The defense did not object to the arrest, but on condition that bail could be posted.

Correspondents of Radio Liberty, RBC-Ukraine, and Suspilne reported on the course of the trial.

At the trial, Reut stated that he did not shoot the woman. Another suspect, former law enforcement officer Vitaliy Zhykovych, did it, and Reut himself acted under duress. GURivets is ready to take a polygraph and cooperate with the investigation.

Reut claims that Zhykovych asked him to take the woman, explaining that she needed to be hidden because she was in danger. On the way in the car, Zhykovych took out a pistol with a silencer and said that he needed it just in case Berezovska started to panic. When they approached a forest strip in the Bucha area, Zhykovych ordered Reut to shoot. He refused, after which Zhykovych himself shot the woman twice.

Zhykovychʼs lawyer told Sospilny that, according to the case materials, Reut initially confessed to killing Berezovskaya, but then retracted his testimony and began claiming that Zhykovych killed her. The defense says that Reut slandered himself because he felt his life was in danger and was threatened by another defendant.

Now the court will choose a preventive measure for Zhykovych.

Attempted attack on Vadym Yermolaev in Monaco

On June 29, the French Le Figaro, citing sources, wrote that it was about the family of Vadim Yermolayev, one of the largest developers of the Dnipro. Initially, it was known that Yermolayev, his wife, and 13-year-old son, who received guardianship, were injured. Later, the official wife Anna Yermolaeva told Suspilne that she was not the one who was injured.

Local media outlet Nice-Matin in Monaco reported that Yermolayevʼs partner, Anna Nasobina, was injured and had her leg and foot amputated. She is the daughter of former deputy prosecutor of the Dnipropetrovsk region Oleksandr Nasobina and Yermolayevʼs common-law wife. Their son, born in 2012, was also injured.

A video posted online shows an unknown person leaving a backpack in the lobby of the house where Yermolaev lives, which then exploded. Le Figaro, citing sources , wrote that local investigators are considering, in particular, the version of the SBUʼs involvement.

On July 2, Interpol put Anastasia Berezovskaya, a 39-year-old Ukrainian woman suspected of attempting to assassinate Yermolayev, on the wanted list. The Monaco prosecutorʼs office said the suspect planted an explosive device, detonated it remotely, and fled to France, then via Italy to Germany, where she lives.

On July 7, law enforcement officers in Ukraine found Berezovskayaʼs body. GUR employee Vladyslav Reut and former law enforcement officer Vitaliy Zhykovych were detained on suspicion of her murder.

According to the investigation, they killed Berezovska after she returned to Ukraine by bus on July 1. The men were searched, during which a current GUR employee confessed to killing Berezovskaya.

At the same time, he said that he did not inform his superiors about his contacts with the woman, about how he transferred money to her, and any other actions, but acted at his own discretion. During the search, a basement room resembling a torture chamber was discovered in Zhykovychʼs premises.

• Vadym Yermolayev is a Ukrainian businessman, one of the largest developers of the Dnipro. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, he has not lived in Ukraine. Since 2023, the National Security and Defense Council has imposed sanctions on him due to his alcohol business in occupied Crimea.

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