MONACO — A Ukrainian business tycoon is believed to have been the target of an explosive device that detonated outside a residential building in Monaco, seriously injuring three people before the suspected attacker fled into neighboring France, authorities and media reports said Tuesday.
Media reports identified Ukrainian construction tycoon Vadym Yermolaiev as being among the injured. Ukrainian news site Ukrainska Pravda said he was targeted by Ukrainian sanctions in 2023 for ties to Russia.
A woman was very seriously injured and is being treated at a hospital in Nice, Christophe Mirmand, the minister of state for Monaco, told French news broadcaster LCI on Tuesday. Her partner and a 13-year-old child suffered less severe injuries but remain at hospital, he added.
The explosion occurred around 9 p.m. on Monday at the entrance of a residence near the French border.
Law enforcement officers were deployed Tuesday morning in Monaco and the surrounding area. French and Monaco authorities are searching for an unidentified suspect, whose motive is under investigation, authorities said.
The three victims were “apparently returning home peacefully” in the early evening, according to surveillance footage, Mirmand said. “They were caught in the explosion as they crossed the threshold of their apartment building,” he said.
The victims are “regular” residents of Monaco, but authorities do not yet know whether the family had been threatened in the past, Mirmand said.
“It appears that the family was specifically targeted,” he emphasized, noting that the alleged perpetrator “had walked around the area several times while waiting for the victims,” according to surveillance footage. “In the minutes before the explosion, he was apparently waiting for the victims.”
The suspect left immediately after the incident on foot, using stairs to get away via Monaco and the neighboring French town of Beausoleil, Mirmand said. Surveillance footage from Monaco’s and Beausoleil’s camera networks is being analyzed, he said.
The attack has shocked the elite principality on the Mediterranean Coast. Monaco’s Prince Albert II described it as “an odious act” and said all the country's services were mobilized to ensure security.
A French national police official said a search is underway for the suspect.
Yermolaiev, a Ukrainian-born businessman originally from the city of Dnipro, built his fortune through the Alef Group, a diversified holding with interests including commercial real estate, manufacturing and agriculture. He became one of the country’s best-known property developers, leading projects that reshaped parts of Dnipro’s city center, and has regularly appeared in rankings of Ukraine’s wealthiest businesspeople.
In an interview with Forbes Ukraine, Yermolaiev said he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship and became a Cypriot citizen in 2017.
In December 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on Yermolaiev as part of a broader package targeting individuals and companies Kyiv said had business links to Russia or Russian-occupied territories.
A coastal playground for the rich and famous, Monaco is renowned as much for its tax-friendly incentives and Formula 1 Grand Prix as its glamorous royal family. The small principality is widely regarded as one of the safest places in the world, including through its extensive surveillance network composed of thousands of CCTV cameras covering most public spaces.
Monaco’s population of 38,000 is multinational, with only a fifth of the population actually citizens of the principality.
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AP journalist Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed to the story.
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