Businessman Vadym Yermolayev, who was assassinated in Monaco in late June, said he does not believe that Ukraine officially ordered his assassination. According to him, the perpetrators of the assassination could have acted independently because of money.
He said this in an interview with CNN.
Yermolayev claims that he never had any enemies and always tried to “avoid sharp conflicts”. He suggested that the officers of the Main Intelligence Directorate and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) involved in the case could have acted independently for money. He also rejected the theory that someone from his family was the customer.
Journalists have found out that his eldest son Artur was involved in a fraudulent scheme. It was a telephone scam — he defrauded victims in the EU of an estimated €100 million. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but he made a deal, according to which he was deported from Estonia after four months in prison. Yermolaev claims that this cannot be the reason for the assassination attempt, because he was not involved in the scheme, since he does not even know how to "use a computer".
Regarding Anastasia Berezovska, who is considered the likely perpetrator of the assassination attempt, he said that she could have been killed so that she would not tell anyone about the others involved. The businessman also called it "unrealistic" that the woman would have been following them for four months and organizing it all herself.
Attempted attack on Vadym Yermolaev in Monaco
On the evening of June 29, an explosion occurred in a house in Monaco, injuring the family of Vadym Yermolayev, one of the largest developers in Dnipro. Yermolayev, his partner Anna Nasobina, and their 13-year-old son were injured.
On July 2, Interpol put Anastasia Berezovska, 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. A GUR employee and a former law enforcement officer were detained on suspicion of her murder. The State Border Service of Ukraine reported that Berezovska had legally entered the territory of Ukraine on July 1. At that time, border guards had no information that she was wanted by Interpol.
- Vadym Yermolayev is a Ukrainian businessman. He has not lived in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war. Since 2023, the National Security and Defense Council has imposed sanctions on him due to his alcohol business in occupied Crimea.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.