On the evening of June 29, a powerful explosion rocked a residential building in Monaco. According to media reports, businessman Vadym Yermolaiev was injured. He is from the Ukrainian city of Dnipro and is considered one of the country’s wealthiest businesspeople.

According to the preliminary investigation, an unidentified man left a backpack filled with explosives and metal shrapnel in the building’s lobby. The explosion reportedly injured three people in total — a man and a woman between the ages of 50 and 60 and a 13-year-old boy.

According to the news outlet Nice-Matin, the woman lost both legs in the blast. Media reports say Yermolaiev suffered burns and shrapnel wounds. His wife later told the press that she had been elsewhere at the time of the incident and was therefore unharmed.

According to the French newspaper Le Figaro, investigators in Monaco are also pursuing a lead suggesting that Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) may have been behind the attack on the businessman. Monaco Prosecutor General Stephane Thibault said on July 1 that investigators are treating the incident as attempted murder. The search for the suspects is ongoing.

What is known about Yermolaiev?

Vadym Yermolaiev is the founder of the Alef trading and manufacturing group and one of the largest real estate developers in the city of Dnipro. He has built most of his fortune through investments in commercial and residential real estate. In addition to property development, the group’s businesses include construction materials manufacturing, agriculture, welding technology, mining and logistics.

In 2020, Forbes Ukraine ranked him the country’s 23rd-richest entrepreneur. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, various media estimates put his net worth at more than $200 million.

Business dealings in Crimea

Vadym Yermolaiev renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2017 and obtained Cypriot citizenship. He said he made the decision because he was dissatisfied with judicial and tax systems in Ukraine. On Dec. 23, 2023, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed personal sanctions on Yermolaiev for 10 years under a decision by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. The sanctions included 16 separate restrictions, among them asset freezes and limits on financial transactions.

According to the SBU, Yermolaiev’s business activities in occupied Crimea were the reason for the sanctions. Ukraine’s security service said several of his companies continued operating after Russia occupied the peninsula in 2014 and re-registered under Russian law. By paying millions of dollars in taxes to the Russian state on a regular basis, the companies allegedly contributed financially to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

One of the sanctioned companies is Alef-Vinal-Crimea, which manages the Crimean operations of Alef-Vinal, one of Ukraine’s largest alcoholic beverage producers, a group that Yermolaiev is also said to control. Yermolaiev has publicly denied the allegations, saying he did not act in Russia’s interests and that the sanctions against him are unfounded.

Scandals involving the Yermolaiev family

In August 2022, journalists at the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda exposed what they called the “Monaco Battalion” — a network of Ukrainian businesspeople, politicians and oligarchs who had settled on the French Riviera during Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. Vadym Yermolaiev was among those named.

In August 2024, broadcaster Hromadske reported that a Dnipro-based company linked to Yermolaiev had been selected to supply granite for the first phase of Ukraine’s National Military Memorial Cemetery. The company denied the allegations. Hromadske later reported that Yermolaiev had transferred control of the company to his daughter, Sofia Kononenko, in an effort to circumvent Ukrainian sanctions.

In December 2025, Yermolaiev’s son, Artur, was arrested in Cyprus and extradited to Estonia. In connection with the so-called Milton Group, an international online investment fraud network, he pleaded guilty, paid €8.5 million ($10 million) in compensation and received a five-year suspended sentence.

Are there any known motives for the attack?

Although French and Ukrainian media, citing sources close to the investigation, have reported that Yermolaiev was the intended target of the attack, Monaco’s authorities have not officially confirmed that. Motives discussed in the media include Yermolaiev’s possible ties to former business partners in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, alleged connections to Russian organized crime and a possible link to the criminal case involving his son. None of these theories has been officially confirmed.

This is not the first high-profile attack in Europe involving influential figures from Ukraine. In May 2025, for example, Andrii Portnov, a former politician and lawyer with close ties to the regime of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, was shot dead in Spain.

This article was originally published in Ukranian.