Police in Monaco are hunting a suspected bomber after a Ukrainian business tycoon was injured in an attack on Monday in the wealthy Mediterranean principality.
Authorities said a booby-trapped device exploded shortly before 9pm on Monday at a residential building in the tax haven.
Two adults and a child were injured, two of them seriously, and were taken to hospital in the nearby French city of Nice. Authorities did not disclose their nationalities.
A person familiar with the investigation into the incident said Vadym Iermolaiev, a Ukrainian tycoon, was one of those injured.
RM Block
Iermolaiev emerged in the late 2000s as one of the country’s wealthiest figures, but later told Forbes Ukraine he had renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2017, holding only a Cypriot passport since.
“I want to have international protection. The Ukrainian judicial system, to put it mildly, is not ideal, and the tax system is not objective,” he told Forbes, in explaining his decision to leave Ukraine.
His wife Anna Iermolaieva said her family is “currently under tremendous stress and is actively co-operating with the law enforcement investigation”.
Iermolaiev was known as an influential regional figure and major property developer in Dnipro, a city in south-central Ukraine that hosts some of the country’s largest industries and is key to its defence against Russia.
Forbes listed him as the 45th wealthiest Ukrainian in 2021, a year before Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy imposed sanctions on Iermolaiev in late 2023 for allegedly doing business with Russian entities in Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia, including Crimea, forcibly annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his citizenship and the attack.
Police secure the scene of a bomb blast at an apartment block in Monaco
Authorities on Monday said a suspect in the attack was identified by video surveillance systems fleeing the principality towards the adjoining French town of Beausoleil.
Christophe Mirmand, Monaco’s minister of state, said the incident was unprecedented and called for “extreme vigilance to ensure the investigation is as swift as possible”. Mirmand said the victims appeared to be related.
“This is the first time in history, to my knowledge, that such an act has taken place in the principality,” he told a press conference.
Prince Albert II of Monaco described the blast as “criminal” and said it was “a shock for the entire Monegasque community”.
- Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026
