Police in Monaco are hunting a suspected bomber after a Ukrainian business tycoon was injured in an attack at a residential building in the wealthy Mediterranean principality. A booby-trapped device exploded shortly before 9 p.m. Monday, injuring two adults and a child, two of them seriously. All three were taken to the hospital in nearby Nice, France. Authorities did not disclose their nationalities, but a person familiar with the investigation identified one victim as Vadym Iermolaiev, a Ukrainian tycoon. Iermolaiev rose to prominence in the late 2000s as one of Ukraine’s wealthiest figures and a major property developer in Dnipro, a city vital to the country’s defense against Russia’s invading forces. Forbes ranked him the 45th-wealthiest Ukrainian in 2021. He later renounced his Ukrainian citizenship, telling Forbes Ukraine, “I want to have international protection. The Ukrainian judicial system, to put it mildly, is not ideal, and the tax system is not objective.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sanctioned Iermolaiev in 2023 over allegations he did business with Russian entities in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. His wife, Anna Iermolaieva, told The Financial Times the family is “currently under tremendous stress and is actively cooperating with the law enforcement investigation.” Authorities said a suspect was tracked by surveillance footage skipping town.
Read it at Financial Times
