Monaco explosion injures 3 including Ukrainian tycoon as suspect flees to France

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MONACO (AP) — A search is underway for a suspect who fled on foot after an explosive device placed in an apartment building entrance in Monaco injured three people including a reported Ukrainian tycoon, the exclusive principality’s chief prosecutor said Tuesday.

The suspect acted alone and remains at large, Prosecutor Stéphane Thibault said, adding that the motive remains unclear.

Monaco police have opened an attempted murder investigation into Monday night's incident but aren’t qualifying it as a terrorism investigation, Thibault told reporters. The motive remains unclear.

One of the three injured is a woman in life-threatening condition, according to Thibault, who said a man is no longer in life-threatening condition while a child's life isn’t in danger. He did not provide their identities.

The suspect left immediately after the incident on foot, using stairs to get away via a small street to the neighboring French town of Beausoleil, according to surveillance footage.

In a picture captured from CCTV cameras and published by French media, the suspect can be seen in a street wearing a black jacket, light-colored pants, white shoes and a black hat that partly conceals his face.

Media reports identified Ukrainian construction tycoon Vadym Yermolaiev as being among the injured. Ukrainian news site Ukrainska Pravda said he was targeted by Ukrainian sanctions in 2023 for ties to Russia.

The injured woman is being treated at a hospital in Nice, Christophe Mirmand, the minister of state for Monaco, told French news broadcaster LCI on Tuesday. Her partner and a 13-year-old child suffered less severe injuries but remain in the hospital, he added.

The explosion occurred around 9 p.m. on Monday at the entrance of a residence near the French border.

The three victims were “apparently returning home peacefully” in the early evening, according to surveillance footage, Mirmand said. “They were caught in the explosion as they crossed the threshold of their apartment building,” he said.

The victims are “regular” residents of Monaco, but authorities do not yet know whether the family had been threatened in the past, Mirmand said.

“It appears that the family was specifically targeted,” he emphasized, noting that the alleged perpetrator “had walked around the area several times while waiting for the victims,” according to surveillance footage.

The attack has shocked the elite principality on the Mediterranean Coast. Monaco’s Prince Albert II described it as “an odious act” and said all the country's services were mobilized to ensure security.

Yermolaiev, a Ukrainian-born businessman originally from the city of Dnipro, built his fortune through the Alef Group, a diversified holding with interests including commercial real estate, manufacturing and agriculture. He became one of the country’s best-known property developers, leading projects that reshaped parts of Dnipro’s city center, and has regularly appeared in rankings of Ukraine’s wealthiest businesspeople.

In an interview with Forbes Ukraine, Yermolaiev said he renounced his Ukrainian citizenship and became a Cypriot citizen in 2017.

The Cyprus Registrar of Companies lists a man called Vadym Iermolaiev as the director of Vespano Ltd., a company in the Cypriot city of Limassol first registered in January 2019 that is still active.

Cyprus’ Interior Ministry told The Associated Press it could not provide information about the man’s citizenship status due to confidentiality rules.

In December 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on Yermolaiev as part of a broader package targeting individuals and companies Kyiv said had business links to Russia or Russian-occupied territories.

A coastal playground for the rich and famous, Monaco is renowned as much for its tax-friendly incentives and Formula 1 Grand Prix as its glamorous royal family. The small principality is widely regarded as one of the safest places in the world, including through its extensive surveillance network composed of thousands of CCTV cameras covering most public spaces.

Monaco’s population of 38,000 is multinational, with only a fifth of the population actually citizens of the principality.

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Associated Press journalists Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine, Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this report.