A quiet pine forest sixty kilometers west of Kyiv is a strange place for a European international assassination plot to unravel, but that is exactly where Ukrainian investigators found the body of Anastasiia Berezovska. Shot multiple times, including twice in the back of the head, the 39-year-old was the prime suspect in the June 29 remote-controlled bomb attack in Monaco that targeted sanctioned tycoon Vadym Yermolaiev. Her sudden execution came just days after she slipped across the Ukrainian border, a fast-moving sequence of events that took an alarming turn on July 9 when a Kyiv court remanded two men in custody without bail. One of those men is Vladyslav Reut, an active-duty officer in Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence, better known as the HUR.
The detention of an active military intelligence operative alongside a former regional law enforcement officer, Vitalii Zhykovych, has transformed a high-society attempted murder case into a full-blown national security emergency for Kyiv. While the HUR officer maintains he acted purely on his own initiative without the knowledge of his superiors, the timeline and financial trails point toward an organized cell operating with terrifying efficiency across European borders.
The Kyiv Woods Execution
The official narrative presented by the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, paints a picture of a cold-blooded silencing. According to court proceedings in Kyiv, Zhykovych and Reut met at a roadside cafe before intercepting Berezovska on the M06 highway on July 3, just two days after she arrived in the country by bus. They drove her to a secluded forest near the village of Yuriv.
What happened next is a matter of bitter dispute between the co-defendants. Reut claims that Zhykovych pulled out a pistol, stood behind Berezovska, and fired the first shot into her head before firing subsequent rounds into her torso as she lay on the ground. Reut testified that he was forced at gunpoint to dig the shallow grave, while Zhykovych stripped the dead woman of her personal effects and even her trainers. Zhykovych, through his legal counsel, completely denies the allegations.
The SBU recovered the spent pistol casings from the forest soil only after one of the men cracked during initial interrogation and led them to the site. The brutality of the killing matches the high stakes of the operation that preceded it. This was not a random act of violence. It was the systematic erasure of a loose thread.
A Disguise in the Principality
To understand why a military intelligence operative would end up in a Ukrainian forest standing over a shallow grave, one must look back to the pristine streets of Monaco on late June.
A heavily built person wearing a black bucket hat, light-colored shorts, and a dark long-sleeved top walked into the entrance hall of a luxury apartment building in the wealthy principality. The individual carried a rucksack. Moments later, as the 58-year-old construction and real estate tycoon Vadym Yermolaiev emerged from the building accompanied by his partner and their 13-year-old son, the rucksack exploded.
The blast was devastating. It shattered windows, tore through the lobby, and left three members of the family injured, with one victim initially placed in life-threatening condition.
Monaco authorities initially hunted for a male suspect. However, a meticulous review of closed-circuit television footage from the preceding days combined with critical witness statements shifted the focus entirely. The attacker was a woman disguised as a man. Interpol quickly slapped a Red Notice on Berezovska, a native of Zhytomyr who had recently been living a quiet life in Frankfurt, Germany, where she bred dogs.
Her escape from the scene was rapid. She fled Monaco on foot into France, picked up a rental vehicle equipped with German license plates, and drove across Italy before returning to her apartment near Frankfurt. By the time German special forces raided her residence, Berezovska was already gone. She had boarded a commercial bus headed directly for Ukraine.
The Shadow Network and the Crypto Trail
The speed with which Berezovska moved across European frontiers suggests a deep logistical network. She entered Ukraine legally through a standard border checkpoint on July 1. At that exact moment, the French and Monégasque authorities had not yet uploaded her name into the active Interpol alert system, allowing her to clear passport control without triggering alarms.
The financial links discovered by the SBU suggest that her relationship with her accused killers predated the Monaco attack. Investigators tracking Berezovska’s bank accounts and digital cryptocurrency wallets discovered a pattern of repeated, substantial transfers originating from both Reut and Zhykovych.
The sophistication of the remote-controlled bomb used in Monaco already led Monégasque prosecutors to conclude that the perpetrator did not act alone. The device required technical expertise to construct and precise timing to detonate from a distance. The financial data ties the active Ukrainian intelligence officer and the former cop directly to the suspect before the bomb ever went off.
This leaves investigators with a disturbing question. Were the two men funding a private contract killing, or were they managing an operative on behalf of a broader entity?
The Torture Chamber in the Basement
The investigation took an even darker turn when SBU agents executed a search warrant at the home of Zhykovych, the former law enforcement officer. In the basement of his property, agents discovered a heavily modified room equipped with restraints and tools that authorities explicitly described as a torture chamber.
The presence of such a facility suggests that the duo’s activities extended far beyond a single hit-and-run assassination cover up. It points to an ongoing, illicit enforcement operation.
The defense is already trying to minimize the damage. Reut’s insistence on taking a polygraph test and his claims of being coerced under duress indicate a strategy to shift the blame entirely onto the older, former law enforcement official. Yet the reality remains that an active member of Ukraine's foreign-facing military intelligence service was deeply involved in the movement, funding, and ultimate execution of an international fugitive.
A Geopolitical Liability for Ukraine
For the government in Kyiv, the timing of this scandal is disastrous. The target of the Monaco bombing, Vadym Yermolaiev, is a highly controversial figure. He built a massive fortune through the Alef Group, a conglomerate spanning commercial real estate and agriculture, and was ranked among the top 40 richest people in Ukraine.
In 2023, the Ukrainian government placed Yermolaiev under strict economic sanctions due to his continued business operations in Russian-annexed Crimea. Yermolaiev had already renounced his Ukrainian citizenship years prior to obtain a Cypriot passport, effectively joining the ranks of the untouchable expatriate billionaires residing on the French Riviera.
While many in Ukraine viewed Yermolaiev as a rogue oligarch funding an enemy regime, an assassination attempt on European soil using a military intelligence asset is a massive diplomatic liability. Western allies providing vital military funding to Kyiv are hyper-sensitive to any indication that Ukrainian security apparatuses are conducting unauthorized, violent operations within Western Europe. Prince Albert II of Monaco openly condemned the bombing as an odious act, and French prosecutors are pushing hard for answers.
The official stance from Kyiv is an exercise in damage control. The SBU maintains that Reut acted entirely on his own discretion, keeping his superiors completely in the dark about his interactions with Berezovska. Whether Western intelligence agencies accept the rogue operative theory remains to be seen. The ongoing pre-trial investigation must now trace the true origin of the cryptocurrency funds that paid for the Monaco bomb, a trail that may lead far higher than a single officer in a Kyiv court.
