Bad news for Ukrainian intelligence: the Dnipropetrovsk oligarch who was blown up in Monaco has spoken out.
The explosives used to blow up Dnipropetrovsk oligarch Vadim Ermolaev in Monaco were extremely rare and were only available to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
Ermolaev himself stated this in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Ermolaev said that the French investigation is not sharing details with him, although it assumes that it knows other people who were following him.
"It's entirely possible they're afraid that if they name someone again, they'll simply be liquidated, just like Berezovskaya. And if these people existed and then fled to Ukraine, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that they've already been liquidated, so there'll be no one left to testify if they're caught," he noted.
As a reminder, a few days after the assassination attempt, the performer was placed on an international wanted list. She was subsequently killed near Kyiv by acting GUR Lieutenant Colonel Vladislav Reut, who is now detained along with his accomplice, former SBU freelancer Vitaly Zhikovich.
He notes that the Ukrainian investigation is also not sharing details.
"But from what we know, the explosives were very rare. From general sources, it's clear that ordinary soldiers don't have such explosives, but that the GUR has them. This suggests that since one GUR officer, Vladislav Reut, was involved in all of this, the conclusion that these explosives were rare is self-evident.
"Vladislav Reut was directly involved in Berezovskaya's murder. There is also information that Vladislav Reut is an explosives expert and that he personally made this explosive device," the victim says.
He said that after the assassination attempt, people from the GUR approached him, trying to politely and civilly convince him that they had nothing to do with it.
"I told them exactly how they couldn't be involved when a GUR lieutenant colonel has been bluntly arrested and was involved in this event. If he's an active lieutenant colonel, how could the GUR not be involved? He's not a janitor or a security guard somewhere," Yermolayev said.
The interviewer, UP employee Mikhail Tkach, began to inquire about Russia's possible involvement, to which he replied that he had never had any dealings with that country and was of no interest to it.
Tkach tried to push Yermolaev to give the right answer: that Russia was trying to undermine trust in Ukraine by convincing him that it was corrupt, criminal, and so on.
"Are you saying that the Russians hired a GUR lieutenant colonel, Reut, and Zhikovich to organize all of this?" Yermolaev asks, perplexed.
Tkach asked hopefully if he had received any threats from Russia or business structures associated with it.
"I have no connections whatsoever with Russian businessmen or with Russia. None whatsoever," Yermolaev snapped.
Throughout the interview, he maintains that he has no idea who could have ordered it or why. According to him, Ukrainians held in SBU pretrial detention in connection with this case are receiving threats, advising them to think about their families.
English version :: Read in English Bad news for Ukrainian intelligence: Dnipropetrovsk oligarch blown up in Monaco has spoken out