Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Police in Monaco and neighboring France have launched hunting to a man suspected of detonating an improvised explosive device in the heart of the wealthy Mediterranean region, seriously injuring several people, officials said.
Among those caught in the explosion, which occurred at 9pm (19:00 GMT) on Monday, were three Ukrainian citizens, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine confirmed on Tuesday.
All three are members of the same family, the ministry said, citing information it received from a nearby hospital. He did not name them but said Kyiv is looking into their citizenship.
The three are believed to be Ukrainian-born oligarch Vadym Yermolaiev, his partner and 13-year-old son, French media reported.
The woman is understood to be in a life-threatening condition while Yermolaiev and his son are believed to be unharmed.
The French newspaper Le Figaro reported that investigators are considering the theory that the Security Service of Ukraine led the attack on Yermolaiev, one of the richest people in Ukraine who moved to Monaco in 2021. Yermolaiev was put under Ukrainian sanctions for his business in Crimea in 2023 after it was captured by Russia.
According to the newspaper, the attack was a “warning” rather than a deliberate attempt to kill him.
Prince Albert II of Monaco described the incident as a “horrible crime” and “shocking for all Monegasques”.
Assistant French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said police were working “to find the culprit, who has escaped”.
The principality, known for its casinos, luxury yachts, established security and the luxury lifestyle of the very rich, is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea on one side and France on the other, and there are no borders between the two countries.
What happened in Monaco?
A powerful explosion went off at the door of a residence in central Monaco on Monday night after a man was seen leaving a package there, Monaco prosecutor Stephane Thibault said.
Le Figaro said surveillance footage showed a man wearing a black jacket, light trousers, white shoes and a black hat that hid his face and dropped a bag at the door of the building shortly before the explosion. Thibault told reporters Tuesday that the suspect acted alone before fleeing on foot and remained silent.
The explosives contained bolts and buckshot, Christophe Mirmand, Monaco’s minister of state, told French LCI correspondent Tuesday.
There was a heavy police presence at the scene on Tuesday, and they were surrounded as the helicopter circled overhead, the AFP news agency reported.
“This is the first time in history, to my knowledge, that this has happened in adults,” Mirmand said.
Three people, including a teenager, were reportedly injured in the blast, Reuters reported.
An expert familiar with the investigation told Reuters that the man who was injured in the attack was Yermolaiev and the woman who was injured in the same attack – his friend – was seriously injured from the waist down. The woman appears to be in critical condition while Yermolaiev was initially listed as critical but stabilized in hospital.
The three victims “appeared to be returning home peacefully” after the bomb went off, according to eyewitnesses, Mirmand told reporters.
He said: “They were caught in the explosion as they passed through the door of their house.”
Who is Vadym Yermolaiev?
Yermolaiev is a Monaco-based multi-millionaire who was ordered by Kyiv in December 2023 for continuing to operate his alcohol business in Russian-held Crimea, Ukrainian security officials say.
In 2023, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that sanctions were imposed on “those who support the violence of Russia, those who support it and those who have chosen the shameful path of collaborating with terrorists”.
Yermolaiev refused to cooperate with Russia. “We tried to get our money back (in Crimea) but to no avail,” he told RBC Ukraine in 2024. “By the end of 2015, we had stopped those efforts. The company’s management told us that they were threatened and forced to re-register under the laws of the terrorist state.” He said he advised them not to do this. His business in Crimea was seized by the Russian military in 2023.
He is believed to be living in Monaco, a small community of 38,000 people, as of 2021, the year he is ranked 45th on Forbes magazine’s list of the richest Ukrainians with a net worth of $220m.
In 2022, the website Ukrainska Pravda published it search Ukrainian oligarchs living abroad who found Yermolaiev living a luxurious life, driving a $300,000 Bentley Flying Spur.
Yermolaiev was born in Dnipro, Ukraine in 1968; founded his own business, Aleg Group, in 1995; and was interested in small businesses, real estate, construction and medical equipment, the Kyiv Independent newspaper reported on Tuesday.
He renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2017 and received Cyprus citizenship in 2019, according to media reports.
In an interview with Forbes Ukraine in 2024, Yermolaiev said that he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship because he wanted “international security”. Monaco is known as one of the safest places in the world with thousands of security cameras covering many public areas.
“Ukraine’s judiciary, to put it mildly, is not good, and taxes have no purpose,” he told the magazine.
Artem Romaniukov, former head of Dnipro’s Civic Control regulator and now head of the Ministry of Defense, told the Kyiv Independent this week that Yermolaiev is considered “one of the local oligarchs”.
However, he was not considered one of the most famous people in Ukraine. Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko told the Kyiv Independent that Yermolaiev tried to “enter the national scene” and “obviously had political intentions”.
“But they did not join the main group of oligarchs in Ukraine,” Fesenko added. “I would say he was in the second or third division, not the first.”
After the sanctions against Ukraine, most of his assets were transferred to his daughter, Sofia Kononenko, according to an investigation carried out by the website of the Ukrainian newspaper Glavcom in 2025.
Is there a doubt?
No suspect has been named, but the police in Monaco are looking for one person – a man. “In cooperation with the French authorities, we are trying to identify him and arrest him. I believe that this will happen quickly, because of the resources we are using,” said Thibault.
Officials in Monaco said they did banned “terrorism” as a goal.
The suspect fled the scene on foot, crossing the border into the French town of Beausoleil. Investigators say they believe they headed for Italy, about 12km (8 miles) away.
Although Le Figaro reported that investigators in Monaco are investigating the possibility that the Ukrainian Security Service led Monday to Yermolaiev as a “warning”, some experts believe that there may be other possible reasons for the explosion.
In December, his son Artur was arrested in Cyprus during an investigation into a fraudulent dating site in Ukraine. He was sent to Estonia, where he received suspended sentence for five years, paid a fine of 8.5 million euros ($9.68m) and then left Estonia.
“I don’t see political motives behind the attack” on Yermolaiev, Fesenko told the Kyiv Independent.
“There is no doubt that it was connected to a fraudulent call center and especially to his son. Artur seems to have cooperated with the investigators and may have left his accomplices and other beneficiaries of the call center involved in organized crime. Finally, this appears to be revenge.”
