Who is Vadym Yermolaiev, the Ukrainian tycoon injured in Monaco blast? 

Police in Monaco and neighbouring France have launched a manhunt for a suspect believed to have detonated a makeshift bomb in the centre of the wealthy Mediterranean principality, seriously injuring several people, officials say.

Among those caught in the blast, which occurred at 9pm (19:00 GMT) on Monday, were three Ukrainian nationals, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed on Tuesday.

All three are members of one family, the ministry said, citing information it received from local emergency services. It did not name them but said Kyiv was checking their citizenship.

The three are believed to be the Ukrainian-born oligarch Vadym Yermolaiev, his partner and 13-year-old son, French media reported.

It is understood that the woman is in a life-threatening condition while Yermolaiev and his son are believed to be less seriously injured.

France’s Le Figaro newspaper reported that investigators are considering the theory that Ukraine’s Security Service directed the attack on Yermolaiev, one of Ukraine’s wealthiest businessmen who relocated to Monaco in 2021. Yermolaiev was placed under Ukrainian sanctions for his business dealings in Crimea in 2023 after it had been annexed by Russia.

According to the newspaper, the attack was likely more of a “warning” than a deliberate attempt to kill him.

Monaco’s Prince Albert II described the incident as a “heinous crime” and “a shock to the entire Monegasque community”.

An aide to French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said police were working “to find the perpetrator, who has fled”.

The principality, which is known for its casinos, luxury yachts, tight security and the luxury lifestyle of its super-rich residents, is surrounded by the Mediterranean on one side and France on the other, and there are no border checks between the two countries.

What happened in Monaco?

Le Figaro said video surveillance images showed a man wearing a black jacket, light-coloured trousers, white shoes and a black hat that partly concealed his face dropping a backpack at the entrance of the building shortly before the explosion. Thibault told reporters on Tuesday that the suspect had acted alone before fleeing on foot and remained at large.

The explosive device contained bolts and buckshot, Christophe Mirmand, minister of state for Monaco, told the French news broadcaster LCI on Tuesday.

There was a heavy police presence at the scene on Tuesday, and it was cordoned off while a helicopter circled overhead, the AFP news agency reported.

“This is the first time in history, to my knowledge, that such an act has taken place in the principality,” Mirmand said.

Three people, including a teenager, were reported to have been hurt in the explosion, the Reuters news agency reported.

A source familiar with the investigation told Reuters the man wounded in the attack was Yermolaiev and the woman injured in the same attack – his partner – was badly wounded from the waist down. The woman is understood to be in a life-threatening condition while Yermolaiev was at first understood to be critical but has since stabilised in hospital.

The three victims were “apparently returning home peacefully” when the bomb exploded, according to surveillance footage, Mirmand told reporters.

“They were caught in the explosion as they crossed the threshold of their apartment building,” he said.

Who is Vadym Yermolaiev?

Yermolaiev is a multimillionaire resident of Monaco who was placed under sanctions by Kyiv in December 2023 for continuing to operate his alcohol business in Russian-occupied Crimea, Ukrainian security services reportedly said.

In 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said sanctions had been directed against “those who aid Russia’s aggression, those who assist it and those who have chosen the disgraceful path of collaborating with the terrorist state”.

Yermolaiev has denied collaborating with Russia. “We tried to recover our investments [in Crimea] but to no avail,” he told RBC Ukraine in 2024. “By the end of 2015, we had abandoned those efforts. The management of those companies told us they were being intimidated and pressured into reregistering under the laws of the aggressor state.” He claimed he advised them not to do this. His Crimean business was ultimately seized by Russian forces in 2023.

He is believed to have lived in Monaco, a microstate with a population of 38,000 people, since 2021, the year he was ranked 45th in Forbes magazine’s list of the richest Ukrainians with a net worth of $220m.

In 2022, the Ukrainska Pravda website published an investigation into Ukrainian oligarchs living abroad that found Yermolaiev led a life of luxury, driving a $300,000 Bentley Flying Spur.

Yermolaiev was born in Ukraine’s Dnipro in 1968; founded his business, Aleg Group, in 1995; and had interests in agribusinesses, real estate, construction and the medical equipment sector, the Kyiv Independent newspaper reported on Tuesday.

He renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2017 and obtained Cypriot nationality in 2019, according to media reports.

In a 2024 interview with Forbes Ukraine, Yermolaiev said he had given up his Ukrainian citizenship because he wanted “international protection”. Monaco is considered to be one of the safest places in the world with an extensive surveillance network of thousands of security cameras covering most public spaces.

“The Ukrainian judicial system, to put it mildly, is not ideal, and the tax system is not objective,” he told the magazine.

Artem Romaniukov, the former head of Dnipro’s Civic Control regulator and now a Ministry of Defence official, told the Kyiv Independent this week that Yermolaiev was considered “one of the local oligarchs”.

He was not considered to be among the most influential people in Ukraine, however. Political analyst Volodymyr Fesenko told the Kyiv Independent that Yermolaiev tried to “break onto the national stage” and “clearly had some political ambitions”.

“But he never made it into the top tier of Ukraine’s oligarchs,” Fesenko added. “I’d even say he belonged to the second or third tier, not the first.”

After the imposition of Ukrainian sanctions against him, many of his assets were transferred to his daughter, Sofia Kononenko, according to an investigation by the Ukrainian news site Glavcom in 2025.

Is there a suspect?

No suspect has been named, but police in Monaco are searching for one person – a man. “In coordination with the French authorities, we are pursuing efforts to identify and apprehend him. I hope that will happen quickly, given the resources we are deploying,” Thibault said.

Authorities in Monaco said they had ruled out “terrorism” as a motive.

The suspect fled the scene on foot, crossing the border into the French town of Beausoleil. Investigators say he is believed to have headed towards Italy, about 12km (8 miles) away.

While Le Figaro reported that investigators in Monaco were exploring the possibility that Ukraine’s Security Service directed Monday’s attack on Yermolaiev as a “warning”, some analysts believe there may be other possible motives behind the explosion.

In December, his son Artur was arrested in Cyprus during an investigation into fraudulent call centres in Ukraine. He was extradited to Estonia, where he received a five-year suspended sentence, paid an 8.5-million-euro ($9.68m) fine and then left Estonia.

“I don’t see any political motive behind the attack” on Yermolaiev, Fesenko told the Kyiv Independent.

“It’s much more likely that it was connected to the scam call centres and most likely to his son. Artur appears to have struck a deal with the investigators and likely gave up his accomplices and the other beneficiaries of the call centre network involved in criminal activity. In the end, this appears to have been retaliation.”