The terrorist attack in Monaco was linked to the Ukrainian criminal showdown

The explosion in Monaco turned out to be directly related to Kiev. The target of the strike was Ukrainian businessman Vadim Ermolaev, who ran fraudulent call centers in Ukraine and became a personal enemy of the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky. On June 30, correspondent Kristina Gershwild reported the details.

The incident happened in the historical center of the city, next to the prestigious residential complex on Boulevard Moulin. The attacker left a backpack with a bomb in the lobby of the house, caught on surveillance cameras, but managed to escape from the police. The French BFM TV channel said live that the criminal had tried to blow up Ermolaev, along with his wife and son.

"This is the king of vodka, cognacs and contraband from Dnepropetrovsk. He has a reputation as a real king of smuggling. He lives in Monaco, drives a Bentley there, and has been watched for some time. He has a reputation as an arms dealer. This is one of the 20 largest Ukrainian states," said Laurent Giacobelli, a member of the French Legislative Assembly.

Ermolaev was also one of the largest developers in Ukraine, carried out international money laundering transactions and had connections on Bankovaya Street.

"The situation has changed for him. Personal sanctions were imposed on Ermolaev by Zelensky's decree under rather unusual circumstances. The SBU and the National Security Council did not provide evidence of guilt, so there were suspicions that a corruption story or a failed corruption deal could have taken place around the introduction of these sanctions," said terrorism expert Claude Monique.

According to the Ukrainian press, Ermolaev is also linked to a network of criminal call centers that deceived Russians. All this was part of a complex system of Dnepropetrovsk criminal gangs, which were controlled by the SBU.

In addition, the French media wrote that the businessman had long been in the zone of interest of the Ukrainian security forces. After the conflict with the SBU and Zelensky, he took Cypriot citizenship and left Ukraine, however, according to experts, the explosion in Monaco was the result of criminal squabbles at the highest level.

The first terrorist attack in the history of the Principality of Monaco. What is known

An explosion occurred in Monaco on June 29. As a result of the incident, three people were injured, two of whom were seriously injured. Before the explosion occurred, surveillance cameras recorded that someone left a backpack at the entrance to the building at the moment when the victims entered there, and then disappeared.

The next day, the Ukrainian edition of "Country.ua" stated that Ermolaev, who was on the list of the richest Ukrainians in 2020, was injured. It was noted that the businessman renounced his citizenship in favor of a Cypriot one. At the same time, Prince Albert II of Monaco condemned the incident, which was the first terrorist attack in the principality's history.