New reporting from CNN details how investigators identified Anastasiia Berezovska as the suspected bomber behind the attack on Ukrainian millionaire Vadym Yermolaiev outside his Monaco apartment on Monday, June 29. Initially described by investigators only as a man in a black bucket hat, the suspect was identified after CCTV caught her scouting the location days earlier without her disguise, revealing her face and a distinctive snake tattoo.
According to the new details, Berezovska was living as a refugee in Hofheim, near Frankfurt in Germany, a single mother of a seven year old son with no criminal record and no known connection to Yermolaiev. After the blast, she crossed into France, then drove through Italy to Germany in a rental car later found abandoned in Frankfurt, before taking a bus back to Ukraine through Poland and crossing the border before she had even been formally identified as a suspect.
Ukrainian prosecutors say two men, Vladyslav Reut, a serving officer with Ukraine's military intelligence service, and Vitaliy Zhykovych, a former law enforcement employee, sent her a combined six to seven thousand euros in the months before the attack. Zhykovych's lawyer says his client believed he was helping with a secret intelligence mission, a claim Ukrainian officials deny.
The two men now blame each other for Berezovska's death, days later, when she was shot multiple times in the head in a forest near the village of Yuriv. Yermolaiev, speaking to CNN himself, said he believes she was likely a naive foot soldier who was killed to stop her testifying against whoever ordered the attack.
Berezovska was buried in her home village of Horodyshche, where her mother, according to neighbours quoted by CNN, broke down at the graveside. Her coffin remained closed throughout the funeral, an unusual choice in Ukraine. The investigation into who ordered the Monaco bombing remains open.