Ukrainian tycoon airlifted for treatment following Monaco explosion

Ukrainian businessman Vadym Yermolaiev, who was injured in an explosion in Monaco, has been airlifted from Nice to a hospital in Toulon for further treatment, Nice-Matin reports.

Citing informed sources, the newspaper reported that Yermolaiev was transferred by air ambulance from Nice to Toulon as medical authorities continued to monitor his condition.

 The report also said that Yermolaiev's partner, who was injured in the blast, has undergone surgery.

 "His partner underwent surgery," the newspaper reported.

An assassination attempt against a Ukrainian-born tycoon has sparked a large manhunt across Monaco and France, with authorities saying three people were injured when a parcel bomb went off in a residential building in the wealthy city-state.

The target of the explosion was businessman Vadym Yermolaiev who has left his home country and renounced his Ukrainian citizenship in 2019.

Local authorities refused to identify the victims publicly, only saying that the adult male victim was a resident of Monaco since at least 2021. However, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “according to local emergency services” the three people who were injured in the blast were members of “a family of Ukrainian origin.”

Monaco’s Prosecutor General Stéphane Thibault called the bombing an “attempted assassination” in a news conference, ruling out terrorism as the motive.

Thibault said that an unidentified suspect placed a parcel bomb in a residential building just before 9 p.m. local time on June 29. The bomb went off shortly after that, when three people who live in an apartment on the ground floor of the building arrived home, he added. All three – two adults and a child – were injured in the blast and taken to a hospital in Nice in France, according to the authorities.

By Vafa Guliyeva