A Ukrainian oligarch and a woman whose legs were amputated after a parcel bomb exploded in the lobby of a Monaco apartment building are fighting for their lives in hospital – as police hunt for a suspect who fled towards France.
Vadym Iermolaiev, 58, was returning to his apartment on the Rue Révérend-Père-Louis-Frolla on Monday evening with a woman and a child when the bomb detonated. Within seconds, all three lay covered in blood on the pavement outside. The woman, initially reported to be Iermolaiev’s wife, had her legs amputated after the blast, according to Ukrainian news site Ukrainska Pravda. Monaco public prosecutor Stephane Thibault described her condition as “life threatening”. Iermolaiev suffered multiple shrapnel wounds from a backpack stuffed with bolts and buckshot.
“Ukrainian oligarch Vadym Iermolaiev and two others were gravely injured by a parcel bomb in Monaco; suspect at large.”
The suspect, seen on CCTV wearing a black jacket, black bucket hat, white shoes and beige trousers, ran from the scene towards the neighbouring French town of Beausoleil. An international manhunt is underway, but two days after the attack the motive remains obscure. Sources have offered several theories for why Iermolaiev, one of Ukraine’s richest men, was targeted – ranging from the war in Ukraine to Russian president Vladimir Putin to call centre fraud.
Monaco’s minister of state, Christophe Mirmand, said the trio had been “returning home peacefully” in the early evening when the explosion tore through the lobby. Police are treating the case as attempted murder, not a terrorist attack.
Born in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, Iermolaiev renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2017 and is now solely a Cypriot citizen. He is chairman of Alef, a conglomerate that owns 13 companies in agribusiness, development and construction materials. He has regularly appeared on Focus magazine’s list of Ukraine’s 100 richest people, with a net worth believed to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Ukrainska Pravda referred to him in 2022 as a member of the “Monaco Battalion” – a group of what the outlet called “Ukrainian VIP refugees” concentrated in the principality.
The attack has shocked Monaco, a coastal playground for the rich where violent crime is rare. All three victims were rushed to the Pasteur Hospital in Nice. The manhunt continues.