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Police in Monaco are searching for a suspected bomber after a Ukrainian-born business tycoon, his wife and their child were injured in an unprecedented attack that has shaken the normally ultra-safe principality.
Stéphane Thibault, Monaco’s public prosecutor, told reporters a lone man arrived at the building on Monday evening and left a package in the lobby before walking away. Moments later, as three occupants of a ground-floor apartment approached the entrance, the package exploded, he said.
French media identified the three as Vadym Iermolaiev, his wife and their 13-year-old child. Iermolaiev and his wife had been taken to hospital with serious injuries, while their child was also wounded, French authorities said.
Without naming them, Thibault said the woman remained in a life-threatening condition, the man was no longer in a critical condition and the child’s injuries were not considered life-threatening.
Photographs online showed the entrance of the luxury apartment building damaged by the blast. CCTV footage showed the suspect fleeing towards the French border shortly after the explosion. French media published a video image of the alleged bomber, who was seen wearing a dark top and a bucket hat.
Prosecutors said they had opened an attempted murder investigation into Monday night’s incident but were not qualifying it as terrorism. The motive remains unclear.
Prince Albert II of Monaco condemned the bombing as “an odious act” and said all the principality’s security services had been mobilised.
Christophe Mirmand, Monaco’s minister of state, described the bombing as unprecedented and urged “extreme vigilance” to ensure the investigation progressed as quickly as possible. “To my knowledge, this is the first time in history that such an act has taken place in the principality,” he told a press conference.
The victims were “regular” Monaco residents, but investigators had not established whether the family had previously been threatened, Mirmand said.
“It appears the family was specifically targeted,” he said, adding that surveillance footage showed the suspected attacker walking around the area several times while waiting for the victims.
The explosive device had apparently contained bolts and buckshot, Mirmand said. He added that emergency services had treated four other people for shock and cuts from windows shattered in the blast.
Originally from the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Iermolaiev founded the Alef trade and industrial corporation and became one of the region’s most influential property developers and businessmen.
Once ranked among Forbes Ukraine’s 100 richest Ukrainians, he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2019 in favour of Cypriot nationality. Ukraine imposed sanctions on him in 2023, alleging he had maintained business links with Russian entities operating in Ukrainian territories occupied by Moscow, including Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
Iermolaiev was not known for espousing pro-Russian views. After Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, he said his Gulfstream G150 private jet had been destroyed in a Russian missile strike on Dnipro airport.
In a 2024 interview with Forbes Ukraine, Iermolaiev said he had given up his Ukrainian citizenship because he wanted “international protection”. “The Ukrainian judicial system, to put it mildly, is not ideal, and the tax system is not objective,” he told the magazine.
The Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that Iermolaiev had been living in Monaco since the start of the invasion.
Monday’s attack has stunned the wealthy Mediterranean enclave, where violent crime is exceptionally rare.
A resident living near the building told the French outlet Nice-Matin that the blast had sent shock waves through the neighbourhood. “The noise was horrible … In Monaco, we’re not used to this kind of event. We’re still in shock,” they said.
Best known for its luxury lifestyle, low-tax regime and annual Formula One Grand Prix, Monaco has long attracted billionaires, celebrities and business elites from around the world. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it has also become home to a number of wealthy Ukrainians, a group dubbed the “Monaco Battalion” by independent Ukrainian media.
