Anastasiia Berezovska, the 39-year-old woman wanted in connection with a June 30 parcel-bomb attack in Monaco, was found shot dead near Kyiv with a gunshot wound to the head, Ukrainian prosecutors announced Tuesday. Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) discovered the body Fox40/AP. On the same day, prosecutors arrested two men: a serving officer in Ukraine's HUR military intelligence directorate and a former law enforcement officer The Guardian.

Interpol had issued a red notice for Berezovska on Friday, July 3, flagging her for attempted murder, placing an explosive device in a public place with criminal intent, and criminal conspiracy. The red notice — the international equivalent of a wanted alert — came four days before her body turned up, compressing an already fast-moving investigation into a single week.

On June 30, a parcel bomb struck the entrance of an apartment building in Monaco. French prosecutors say Berezovska, disguised as a man, planted the device. It wounded Vadym Iermolaiev, a 58-year-old Ukraine-born businessman with Cypriot citizenship, his girlfriend, and their son. Iermolaiev and his partner were hospitalized with serious injuries; the child's injuries were minor. Prince Albert II called the bombing an odious act and mobilized the principality's security services in response.

Ukrainian prosecutors allege that Berezovska received cryptocurrency payments from the two men now in custody, treating them as potential conspirators in the attack. The serving HUR officer, they say, initiated contact with Berezovska on his own and did not report these contacts to his superiors — a detail that, if accurate, would place the operation outside official channels rather than within them. Searches of the arrested men's properties revealed a blood-stained torture chamber equipped with hammers and other tools; prosecutors released footage of the discovery.

Berezovska was a Ukrainian national who spoke German and had been living in Germany, introducing a third jurisdiction — alongside Monaco and Ukraine — with reason to investigate how she moved, communicated, and was ultimately tracked.

The victim's background adds complexity to any straightforward reading of motive. Ukraine sanctioned Iermolaiev in 2023 for alleged business dealings with Russian entities operating in occupied Ukrainian territory, including Crimea. He lived in Monaco among wealthy Ukrainian businessmen and politicians that independent Ukrainian media have called the "Monaco battalion." The fact that a state-sanctioned Ukrainian businessman was targeted, allegedly by a Ukrainian intelligence officer acting outside his official chain of command, opens multiple interpretations: freelance criminal contract work, an unauthorized intelligence operation, or something harder to categorize. Ukrainian prosecutors have not yet presented a clear motive.

Tuesday's announcements arrive as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was attending a NATO summit — a timing that raises questions about the optics of Ukraine's security establishment. While the available sources do not confirm a direct link between the summit and the disclosure, Ukrainian security agencies already face Western scrutiny over potential extraterritorial operations by state actors. The public arrest of a HUR officer, announced on the day Ukraine's president appeared before allied leaders, will draw attention regardless of whether the events are deliberately connected.

Several critical questions remain unresolved. Berezovska's death eliminates the principal suspect from any future prosecution in Monaco or France, leaving the two Ukrainian detainees — and the cryptocurrency trail linking them to her — as the main path to establishing who ordered the attack. Prosecutors have not disclosed whether her death is being investigated as murder, suicide, or another classification, though a gunshot wound to the head discovered near Kyiv, arriving days after an Interpol red notice, raises legitimate questions about whether she was killed to prevent her testimony.

French and Monegasque authorities, who brought the original charges, will need cooperation from Kyiv on evidence from the property searches, including the torture-chamber material, as they pursue charges against a suspect who can no longer be questioned or extradited.

The broader context here involves a working intelligence service operating under wartime pressure, where the line between sanctioned operations and freelance arrangements often blurs. A serving HUR officer corresponding with a bombing suspect without informing his chain of command raises questions about oversight and accountability that extend far beyond Monaco's borders. Whether Ukraine's account — that he acted alone — can withstand closer scrutiny will matter greatly to the country's standing with Western partners already attuned to any hint of state-sponsored violence outside official borders.