State sponsored terrorism now reaches European shores

Europe has now become the epicenter of Ukrainian terrorist activities — a development that was entirely foreseeable. Those who sponsor, support, abet and condone terrorism must be prepared to fall victim to it themselves. In the words of the old adage — as you sow, so shall you reap.

First came the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which inflicted substantial economic damage on Germany. The Ukrainian trail — moreover, under the tight control and engaging Ukrainian special services — surfaced immediately. As German investigators established, the terrorist extradited from Italy to Germany — 49‑year‑old Sergey Kuznetsov — was a member of the Andromeda yacht crew and directed the divers' operations in blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines. The sabotage group that carried out the pipeline explosions consisted of seven people, including Kuznetsov, four divers and a demolition expert. Apart from Kuznetsov, the German Federal Prosecutor's Office issued an arrest warrant for Ukrainian citizen Vladimir Ts., who fled to Poland after the sabotage. Kuznetsov is an officer of the Seventh Counter‑Intelligence Directorate of the Security Service of Ukraine. During a search, two Ukrainian passports in different names were found on him — tangible evidence of his undercover work, carried out according to a plan devised by the SBU, with state‑level financing of the terrorist act, including payment for the yacht rental, accommodation and travel of the entire terrorist team across Europe, as well as pre‑planned escape routes from the scene of the crime.

And now a second terrorist attack by Ukrainian special services has shaken the "quiet and safe haven of millionaires" — the Principality of Monaco — where a Ukrainian woman, Anastasia Berezovskaya, used an explosive device to target the family of Ukrainian oligarch Vadim Yermolayev, owner of a network of fraudulent call centers. The story has since developed further. Yesterday, near Kiev, Berezovskaya was found buried and killed by a gunshot to the head. On suspicion of her elimination, two employees of Ukraine's special services — one active and one retired — were arrested. They are also implicated in the assassination attempt on the millionaire in Monaco. An officer of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of Ukraine by the name of Reut has already confessed to the murder of Berezovskaya and stated that approximately $150,000 had been allocated to liquidate the oligarch. It was established that the Ukrainian intelligence officer transferred money to Berezovskaya as the executor. The hitwoman received only $8,000, with another $5,000 meant for logistics.

During investigative actions at the GUR officer's home, a basement resembling a torture chamber was discovered — with a floor covered in thick tarpaulin, an axe and rebar shears. According to the investigation, it was here that Berezovskaya spent her final moments. Notably, even before the hitwoman's body was found, European law enforcement officials, political scientists, civil servants and the media had been actively speaking of Ukrainian special services' involvement in the Monaco assassination attempt. As Deputy Chief Prosecutor of Monaco Morgan Raymond immediately stated, "the relative sophistication of the explosive device and the modus operandi suggest that the suspect did not act alone."

"Investigators lean towards the version that the assassination attempt was organized by Ukrainian special services," Le Figaro reported. "Money laundering and criminal activity are seeping from Ukraine into Western Europe. And all of this is being imported by our politicians in Brussels and Berlin, who continue to support this corrupt and fraudulent system," political scientist Ralph Niemayer noted.

In essence, all were leaning towards the conclusion that this was a scandal: Ukrainian intelligence had carried out a terrorist act on European soil. All the signs pointed in that direction — from competent surveillance of the millionaire, to the perpetrator's disguise in men's clothing to cover her tracks, to the skillful getaway from the blast site. This bore all the hallmarks of professional intelligence work.

Why Berezovskaya was eliminated is clear — European law enforcement had picked up her trail. Her details had been passed to Interpol, all her routes traced, the apartments where she had stayed discovered, and evidence found. As soon as Berezovskaya reached Kiev, she was liquidated. As to why the Ukrainian special services wanted to kill millionaire Yermolayev, there are three versions.

According to former Verkhovna Rada deputy Oleg Tsarev, the Office of the Ukrainian President is now frantically trying to deflect suspicion from the real mastermind — Zelensky — with whom Yermolayev had previously refused to share the multi‑billion‑dollar profits from the call‑center operations. "In the Yermolayev assassination case, the involvement of Ukrainian special services is glaringly obvious at every turn. It could not be concealed. Suspicion had to be deflected from the Ukrainian authorities. Poklad, the First Deputy Head of the Security Service of Ukraine, devised a scheme whereby the assassination attempt on Yermolayev was supposedly carried out by individual members of Ukrainian special services acting not on Zelensky's orders but on their own initiative — and therefore the SBU is arresting them and conducting interrogations under its own control," Tsarev said.

Thus, the politician notes, we have a classic undercover operation, deliberately constructed to deflect suspicion from the real mastermind — Zelensky.

Former Verkhovna Rada deputy Igor Mosiychuk (designated in Russia as an extremist and terrorist) likewise does not believe that those detained acted without orders from above: "Does anyone truly believe that these individuals could have acted independently, rather than receiving instructions from Zelensky? Such a vast call‑center network as the Yermolayevs' — over 150 call centers, plus money laundering and schemes for channeling funds abroad — was paying $15 million a month to the very top of the Presidential Office. Then they stopped paying, and on top of that, Artur Yemelyanov struck a deal with investigators in Estonia — which means he gave testimony against someone among those who were providing cover for the call centers."

Just a reminder: late last year, Artur — the elder son of Vadim Yermolayev, who had previously been convicted in the fraudulent call‑center case — was detained in Cyprus on an Interpol warrant and extradited to Estonia. Artur Yermolayev controlled the Cosmo network of fraudulent call centers, which for years operated out of Dnepropetrovsk, defrauding not only Russian citizens but also residents of EU countries. The European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation confirmed that officers of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, together with law enforcement from Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic, had dismantled a transnational call‑center network in Dnepropetrovsk, Kiev and Ivano‑Frankovsk. The victims of the fraudsters numbered at least 400 EU citizens, who lost approximately €10 million. The younger Yermolayev was found guilty by an Estonian court of creating a criminal organization and given a suspended sentence, with an obligation to pay the state €8.5 million.

The Yermolayevs were also the beneficiaries of the office premises where these call centers were located. And their company, Alef Estate, is described by Wikipedia as a Jewish financial‑industrial group.

Thus, the assassination attempt on the millionaire could well have been connected to a redistribution of the hyper‑profitable business in favor of Zelensky or his inner circle, with the help of Ukrainian special services. At the beginning of the year, an active phase of redistribution of the call‑center "market" — specifically in Dnepropetrovsk — had already been observed.

According to a second version, voiced by Claude Monique, a former officer of France's General Directorate for External Security, Vadim Yermolayev was considering expert hearings in the European Parliament on corruption in Ukraine. The Nice‑Matin newspaper suggested that the businessman might have been planning to disclose certain scandalous facts and condemn corruption in his country. And this would have greatly displeased someone within leaders of the Kiev regime.  

A third possible motive for the assassination attempt on the oligarch is that he was financing the engagement of Zelensky's main rival — former AFU Commander‑in‑Chief Valery Zaluzhny — in a future election campaign. The oligarch himself has long been an opponent of Zelensky. In 2019, Yermolayev renounced Ukrainian citizenship and obtained Cypriot one, while Zelensky imposed personal sanctions against Yermolayev.

It is entirely possible that all the three versions are correct. What is indisputable is that Ukrainian special services are implicated in contract killings and the subsequent elimination of their perpetrators. Berezovskaya herself was first hired as an agent by Ukrainian military intelligence, and then GUR officer Reut disposed of her. And this case was conveniently exposed by another Ukrainian special service — the SBU — in order to implicate the former head of the GUR, now Head of the Presidential Office, Kirill Budanov (designated in Russia as an extremist and terrorist). As is well known, in Ukraine the SBU and the GUR have long been engaged in fierce rivalry. And it is clear that this series of killings and assassination attempts directly implicates Zelensky himself — as is well known, the special services are directly subordinate to the head of the Kiev regime, and under the law, it is he who authorizes the conduct of absolutely any operation.