Ukrainian spy accused of Monaco assassination plot recants murder confession in court

In a dramatic reversal that has further entangled an already opaque case, a Ukrainian intelligence agent who last week confessed to murdering the prime suspect in a Monaco assassination attempt has now recanted his statement, insisting before a Kyiv court that he did not fire the fatal shots. Vladyslav Reut, a decorated officer of the GUR military intelligence agency, appeared at a custody hearing on Thursday alongside his co-accused, Vitalii Zhykovych, a former employee of the SBU security service, with both men denied bail and remanded in custody as investigators continue to piece together the circumstances surrounding the death of Anastasiia Berezovska. The case, which has captivated public attention owing to the intelligence credentials of those implicated, centres on an explosion in Monaco last week that targeted Vadym Yermolayev, a wealthy businessman who made his fortune in cognac and real estate and who had renounced his Ukrainian citizenship years before being sanctioned by Kyiv for continuing commercial operations in Crimea following its annexation by Russia.

Having initially led investigators to a shallow grave in the woods west of Kyiv where Berezovska's body lay concealed beneath branches, Reut this week adopted a markedly different position, telling the court that he "categorically denied" committing the murder and instead attributed responsibility squarely to his alleged accomplice. In his revised account, the 34-year-old GUR officer claimed that the two men had driven his BMW to collect Berezovska from the highway near Kyiv, where she had arrived by bus from Poland two days after the Monaco blast, at a time when she had not yet been formally identified as the primary suspect in the case. It was only after investigators, acting on phone records linking Berezovska to both men, had traced cash and cryptocurrency transfers made to her accounts that Reut initially confessed to shooting her, only to now assert that he had been coerced into doing so.

The court heard that Reut now claims Zhykovych produced a modified Makarov pistol from his rucksack during the journey, loading it despite Reut's protests and claiming it was merely a precautionary measure in case the woman became agitated. Having collected Berezovska, Reut said he was instructed to drive towards the village of Yuriv, where all three alighted on a forest path and where, according to his testimony, Zhykovych ordered him to shoot, uttering the chilling ultimatum: "It's either her or us." When he refused, Reut alleges, Zhykovych himself fired four shots, killing Berezovska, after which the pair dug a grave, concealed her body and disposed of the weapon and her belongings in a nearby lake. Asked why he had initially confessed if he were innocent, Reut claimed that Zhykovych had threatened his relatives, stating that any betrayal would place his family in grave danger.

Zhykovych's legal representative, Anatoliy Ivanov, a shaven-headed figure who was observed fiddling with wooden rosary beads throughout the proceedings, swiftly rejected his counterpart's new narrative, characterising his client as a low-ranking former SBU officer and a patriot who had fought in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and later defended the Kyiv region after Russia's full-scale invasion of 2022. Ivanov dismissed as implausible the suggestion that a civilian could have compelled a serving GUR officer to participate in, let alone carry out, a homicide, while insisting that his own client "did not kill" and describing Reut's retraction as the understandable manoeuvre of a man desperate to avoid imprisonment. The prosecutor, meanwhile, has charged both men with premeditated murder, asserting that they acted "jointly and in a coordinated fashion", though he acknowledged to the BBC that "all versions are being considered" and that one suspect had disclosed certain information regarding a possible motive which could not yet be made public for fear of compromising the investigation.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has intervened in the matter, stating on Thursday evening that he would have "additional relevant reports" to share in the coming days, a pledge that has done little to quell speculation about the broader implications of a case that has placed the Ukrainian authorities in an uncomfortable position. In court, Zhykovych's lawyer floated the unsubstantiated theory of a "Russian trail", noting that Ukrainian intelligence personnel had previously been recruited by Moscow, though he conceded that he possessed no evidence to support such a claim. Other theories, ranging from corruption to organised crime, have also been mooted, leaving investigators with a profusion of possibilities and no clear resolution. Both suspects, their faces obscured by hoods and oversized masks that revealed only their eyes, sat hunched within the glass courtroom cage, their backs to the cameras, as the judge denied bail and ordered their continued detention, leaving the question of who truly pulled the trigger unanswered and the city of Kyiv awaiting the next twist in a saga that shows no sign of reaching its conclusion.