The Monaco bombing was supposed to be a straightforward story of geopolitical score-settling. A remote-controlled blast rips through a luxury apartment lobby in the billionaire playground of the Mediterranean. The target? Vadym Yermolaiev, a sanctioned, Russia-linked Ukrainian construction tycoon. Days later, Interpol issues a Red Notice for a 39-year-old Ukrainian woman named Anastasiia Berezovska, who allegedly disguised herself as a heavily built man in a bucket hat to plant the device.
Then things got messy. Read more on a connected issue: this related article.
Before European police could even trace her rental car past the German border, Berezovska turned up dead in a forest outside Kyiv, shot four times in the head and torso. The plot thickened when Ukraine's domestic security service, the SBU, busted two intelligence insiders for her execution. One was a former SBU officer. The other was Vladyslav Reut, a currently serving operative within Ukraine's elite Defence Intelligence Directorate, the HUR.
Reut immediately confessed to pulling the trigger. Case closed, right? Far from it. Additional journalism by Al Jazeera explores related views on this issue.
In a sensational turn of events at Kyiv’s Pechersk District Court, Reut completely flipped his script. He didn't just tweak his story; he tore it to shreds, pointing the finger directly at his older co-defendant and claiming he was nothing more than an unwilling bystander to an execution.
The Anatomy of a Courtroom Betrayal
You don't expect a seasoned military intelligence operative to panic under pressure, but that's exactly what Reut claims happened during his initial interrogation. Sitting in front of a live-streamed courtroom, the 34-year-old spy claimed his original confession was born out of pure terror for his life.
According to his new testimony, Reut was recruited by 50-year-old Vitaliy Zhykovych—the former SBU man—not to kill Berezovska, but to help move her into hiding. He claims Zhykovych told him her life was in danger due to the blowback from the Monaco hit.
The drive to a wooded area near the village of Yuriv quickly changed the dynamic. Reut testified that Zhykovych pulled a heavily modified, silenced Makarov pistol out of a backpack.
"I refused to do it. I didn't even point the gun at her," Reut told the court panel, insisting he had no personal motive to execute an unarmed woman. "Then Zhykovych lost it, grabbed the gun from me, and, standing behind Berezovska, fired the first shot into the back of her head."
Reut painted a gruesome picture of what happened next. He claims Zhykovych finished her off with three more rounds, then systematically looted her corpse—stealing her wallet, her watch, and two mobile phones—before forcing Reut to dig the shallow grave.
What the SBU Found in the Basement
Zhykovych’s defense team is calling the new story a total fabrication, arguing that both men are being set up by third parties. They raise a fair question: why would a highly trained HUR operative stand by meekly while a retired security officer executes a high-value asset?
The state's evidence tells a much darker story than simple panic. When SBU investigators raided Zhykovych’s property, they didn't just find the standard remnants of a black-market arms cache. They found a custom-built basement room configured precisely to look and function like a professional torture chamber.
Financial forensics show that both Reut and Zhykovych had been funneling major sums of fiat currency and crypto tokens into Berezovska’s private accounts leading up to the Monaco operation. This wasn't a loose network of acquaintances. It looks like a tightly run, well-funded cell.
Why the Spy Agencies Are Staying Silent
The real mess here belongs to the HUR. Reut openly admitted in court that he has killed plenty of people, though he couched it as standard wartime operations against Russian forces. But the HUR has been quick to distance itself from the fallout. The agency claims Reut went completely rogue, operating entirely on his own initiative without notifying his chain of command about his relationship with Berezovska or the crypto transactions.
Whether that's true or just convenient plausible deniability is the million-dollar question. Western intelligence networks have been sounding the alarm for months about escalating shadow wars and targeted assassinations across European soil. If an active HUR officer helped orchestrate a bomb attack in the heart of Monaco, it presents a massive diplomatic nightmare for Kyiv.
If you want to track where this goes next, keep your eyes on the forensic analysis of Berezovska’s recovered mobile phones. The digital ledger of those crypto wallets will reveal exactly who funded the hit on Yermolaiev—and whether Reut's sudden change of heart is a desperate bid to avoid a life sentence or a messy glimpse into a state-sponsored cleanup operation gone wrong.
If you want a deeper look at how international law enforcement cracked the initial disguise and tracked the suspect across western Europe before the Kyiv execution took place, check out this Sky News update on the Monaco bombing warrant. It breaks down the Interpol timeline and the logistics of the rental car escape route.
