Screenshot from a video by Ukrainian journalists, 2022. They denounced rich compatriots who wanted to “sit out” the war on the French Riviera.Screenshot: YouTube
analysis
The attempted killing of Vadym Yermolaev brings the problem of the so-called “Monaco Battalion” to the table. Are serious criminals or secret service agents behind the crime? A search for clues.
June 30, 2026, 6:17 p.mJune 30, 2026, 7:33 p.m
Imagine there is war and the rich are fleeing.
While in 2022, at the beginning of the large-scale Russian invasion, the majority of ordinary citizens endured and fought under rocket fire, a considerable part of the Ukrainian political and business elite fled to the French Riviera.
Then on Monday evening a bomb exploded at a luxury apartment building in Monaco. A Ukrainian multimillionaire and his wife were seriously injured, and their 13-year-old son suffered minor injuries.
No matter what motive the Monegasque and French authorities’ investigations ultimately reveal, the bomb attack brings a painful debate for Ukrainian society back into focus. And we have to talk about the political instrumentalization of crime.
What happened?
The crime scene in an upscale neighborhood in Monaco. This is where the explosive device was detonated.Image: keystone
After a bomb attack in the La Rousse district on Monday evening injured five people, some seriously, the investigation is in full swing.
It is not known whether Russian agents, Ukrainian secret service agents or organized crime were behind the explosion of the backpack explosive device.
The target of the alleged murder attempt was a Cypriot-Ukrainian multimillionaire who lives in exile in Europe with his wife and their son.
His name: Vadym Yermolaev. Age: 58.
All three were taken to a clinic in Nice, southern France. The injured have not yet been interviewed, it is said. The woman’s life is still in danger.
In fact, shortly after the incident, pro-Putin forces tried to turn the regional state of shock into political capital for their anti-Ukraine agenda.
The mayor of the southern French city of Fréjus, who belongs to the right-wing Rassemblement National, attacked the Ukrainian government at X.
Accordingly, the danger would not primarily come from the as yet unknown bomber, but from the Ukrainian elite themselves who are on the Riviera…
What is the “Monaco Battalion” all about?
This is a symbolic and journalistic term. It goes back to sensational research by the Ukrainian newspaper “Ukrainska Pravda” in 2022.
As the research showed, wealthy Ukrainian politicians, oligarchs and businessmen fled to the French Riviera immediately before and after the start of the Russian invasion. They often did this despite Ukraine’s martial law, which prohibited all men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country.
Ukrainian journalists publicized the phenomenon under the term “Monaco Battalion” in August 2022. Their video showed Ukrainian superyachts off the coast, but also luxurious properties and 300,000-franc limousines with Ukrainian license plates.
Yermolayev was also seen in the report.
Men of military age thus evaded national conscription – protected by assets, diplomatic passports or, as in Yermolaev’s case, by previously acquired foreign citizenship.
The moral outcry was great.
The responsible Ukrainian investigative authority subsequently initiated criminal investigations against more than 80 people named in the research in order to clarify the circumstances of their border crossing.
In fact, many of these Ukrainian multimillionaires and billionaires continued to manage their corporate empires from a safe distance or profited financially while their home country was bleeding economically.
Yermolayev was hit with tough sanctions by the Ukrainian government in 2023. This is because he is said to have continued his business on the occupied peninsula in 2014, after the Russian invasion of Crimea began. His public defense that he had donated millions to the Ukrainian army did not appeal to the authorities.
And now someone was trying to kill him.
Who is behind the bombing?
Hypothesis 1: Russian secret services
In recent years, Russian secret services have waged a campaign of sabotage, arson and targeted liquidations against supporters of Ukraine across Europe. An attack on a Ukrainian exile in Western Europe affects the population’s sense of security and causes uncertainty and doubt. And this is precisely one of the goals that Vladimir Putin is pursuing with his hybrid war against Western supporters of Ukraine.
Russia could also use the attack on Yermolaev as a… False flag action committed to make it look like it was an attack by other actors.
One thing is certain: there is a network in Europe that plans and carries out contract killings and sabotage on behalf of Russian secret services. Behinders recruit local criminals via Telegram and pay them with cryptocurrencies.
Hypothesis 2: Ukrainian intelligence agents
The Ukrainian secret services – above all the HUR military intelligence service led by Kyrylo Budanov – have openly adapted the model of the Israeli Mossad: They hunt and liquidate Russian actors, commanders and collaborators, sometimes deep in the enemy’s hinterland.
There are valid reasons against Ukrainian secret services being responsible for the bombing: the fortunes of war seem to be clearly turning in Ukraine’s favor. And the Ukrainian government is unlikely to risk losing important supporting countries such as Germany through a bomb attack on European soil.
The Ukrainian secret service campaign away from the front has so far been directed almost exclusively against high-ranking Russian military officials in Russia or occupied territories.
Hypothesis 3: Ukrainian revenge
There is enormous war-related anger in Ukraine against their own compatriots who are suspected of cooperating with the Kremlin or enriching themselves from the war.
Yermolaev was not known for his pro-Russian views, as the British “Guardian” writes. After Moscow’s large-scale invasion in 2022, he said his private Gulfstream G150 jet was destroyed in a Russian missile attack on Dnipro airport.
Since he was officially sanctioned as a collaborator because of his Crimean dealings and evaded the reach of the Ukrainian justice system abroad, the crime could be the work of radicalized Ukrainian actors or partisans. The motive would therefore be violent vigilantism against those who are perceived as traitors to the nation.
Hypothesis 4: Criminal environment
The attack could be the result of a brutal redistribution or unpaid score within organized crime or among rival oligarchs.
Yermolayev is one of the largest building contractors in his eastern Ukrainian homeland and, according to Forbes, was regularly one of the richest Ukrainians. However, years before the full-scale Russian invasion, he gave up his Ukrainian citizenship and has a Cypriot passport.
A bomb placed in a backpack and detonated using a remote control or timed detonation suggests that it was professionally perpetrated. But the public prosecutor’s office ruled out an Islamist terrorist attack.
Ukrainska Pravda reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources, that French law enforcement authorities assumed that the attack was carried out by representatives of organized crime.
Other unconfirmed reports link the Yermolaev bombing to fraudulent call center activities by his eldest son Arthur. He was arrested in Cyprus at the end of 2025 after an Interpol manhunt and extradited to Estonia. He is said to be free again after being convicted.
The preliminary conclusion: Even the supposedly safe luxury setting of Monte Carlo offers no protection from the distortions of war and criminal retaliation.