Targeted elimination? The official who was fatally injured in an explosion in the prestigious principality

At least three people were injured, two of them critically, in an explosion that occurred on the night between Monday and Tuesday in a residential building in Monaco. The authorities announced that it was an explosive device disguised as a package, while the investigation focuses on the suspicion that it was a deliberate attack. According to reports in France and Ukraine, one of the injured is the Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Yarmulayev, who is considered one of the richest businessmen in Ukraine.

The explosion occurred around 21:00 in a residential building on Rue Reverne Per Louis Perola, near the border with France. According to the authorities in Monaco, the explosive device was hidden in a package, while the prosecutor general said that a suspect placed a bag or package in the lobby of the building and then left the place. Security cameras recorded, according to the authorities, a suspect fleeing on foot towards the town of Beausoleil in France, and the police began a hunt for him.

Monaco’s Minister of State, Christophe Meerman, said that it was a “deliberate explosion”, and added that according to estimates, the cargo contained screws and metal balls intended to increase the force of the impact. According to him, eyewitnesses provided information that may help identify the suspect.

According to a source familiar with the investigation quoted by local media, one of the injured is Vadim Yarmulayev. According to media reports in France and Ukraine, the other two injured are his partner and his 13-year-old son. Mirman did not reveal the identity of the victims, but said that a man and a woman in their 50s or 60s were injured in a life-threatening manner, and a 13-year-old boy was slightly injured. According to him, the boy is “apparently related” to the two.

The three injured were evacuated to a hospital in the city of Nice in France. In addition, four other people received treatment following shock and cuts caused by glass shattered by the force of the explosion.

According to reports, Yarmulayev is a real estate developer who has been living in Monaco for the past few years. Ukraine imposed sanctions on him in December 2023, due to his business activities in the alcohol sector in the Russian-controlled Crimean Peninsula. In recent weeks, Ukraine has greatly increased its efforts to damage the Crimean Peninsula and in fact succeeded in cutting it off from the access routes to Russia and the Russian-occupied territories in southern Ukraine.

The Prince of Monaco, Albert II, condemned the incident and called it a “heinous crime” and “a shock to the entire community of Monaco.” He said that all state officials were recruited to deal with the incident in cooperation with the French authorities. Large police, fire and rescue forces were deployed at the scene, and the area was closed to traffic. More than a hundred security and emergency personnel participated in the activity, while a helicopter hovered over the area.

The authorities are hunting for the suspect whose whereabouts are currently unknown, and there is concern that he has already fled Monaco and possibly even France. Over the past few years, a trend has developed of liquidations and account closures on the part of Ukraine and Russia against foreign or local citizens who are defined as threats due to the war, or simply in the form of account closures. For example, a Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine and was murdered by a squad of assassins from Russia was eliminated in Spain.