A Ukrainian military intelligence officer who had confessed to killing the woman suspected of trying to assassinate a millionaire in Monaco has now reversed course, denying he pulled the trigger. Vladyslav Reut, who days earlier led investigators to the forest grave where Anastasiia Berezovska’s body was buried, told a Kyiv court on Thursday that he “categorically denied” murdering her and instead pointed the finger at his alleged accomplice.
The case has drawn intense scrutiny because Reut is a decorated, active officer with Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, GUR, while his co-defendant, Vitalii Zhykovych, recently worked for the SBU security service. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday evening he would share “additional relevant reports” on the matter in the coming days, though the motive behind the Monaco explosion targeting businessman Vadym Yermolayev remains unclear.
Yermolayev, who built his fortune in cognac and real estate, renounced his Ukrainian citizenship years ago and has since been sanctioned by Kyiv for continuing business dealings in Russian-occupied Crimea. The woman suspected of orchestrating the bomb attack against him has now herself been killed.
Reut and Zhykovych appeared in court Thursday for separate custody hearings, handcuffed and surrounded by armed security officers in balaclavas. Both men kept their hoods up and faces largely covered throughout the proceedings, sitting hunched in the glass courtroom enclosure with their backs to television cameras.
Prosecutors told the court that Berezovska had entered Ukraine by bus from Poland two days after the Monaco blast, before she had been publicly identified as the prime suspect. Investigators say they quickly zeroed in on Zhykovych, 50, and Reut, 34, using her phone records, and later traced cash and cryptocurrency transfers the two men had sent to her accounts. Reut initially appeared to confess to the killing outright, later guiding investigators to her hidden grave in a wooded area west of Kyiv.
Just days later, however, he told the court he wanted to “tell the truth” and shifted blame entirely onto Zhykovych. “I fought enemy combatants while defending my country,” Reut said. “I would never intentionally murder an innocent civilian woman.”
In his revised account, Reut claimed the two men drove in his BMW to collect Berezovska on the highway into Kyiv because she “needed to be hidden” over an unspecified “criminal matter.” He alleged that Zhykovych produced a modified Makarov pistol from a rucksack during the drive, loading it despite Reut’s objections, with Zhykovych reportedly insisting it was merely a precaution “in case she panics.”
Reut said he was then directed to drive toward the village of Yuriv, where all three exited the vehicle onto a forest path. There, he claims Zhykovych ordered him to shoot, telling him, “It’s either her or us.” According to Reut, Zhykovych then fired four shots himself, killing Berezovska, before the two men buried her body and disposed of the weapon and her belongings in a nearby lake.
Asked why he would confess to a murder he now denies committing, Reut said he had been threatened by Zhykovych, who allegedly warned him, “If anything happens to me, your relatives are in danger.”
Zhykovych’s lawyer, Anatoliy Ivanov, rejected this account entirely. Fidgeting with wooden rosary beads throughout the hearing, he described his client as a low-level former SBU officer and dismissed the notion that a civilian could have ordered a serving GUR officer to commit murder. He characterized Zhykovych as a “patriot” who fought in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and later defended the Kyiv region following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. “He does not want to be imprisoned. I understand,” Ivanov said of Reut’s shifting testimony, while maintaining that “my client did not kill.”
Prosecutors say the two men acted “jointly and in a coordinated fashion” and have charged both with premeditated murder. Zhykovych’s lawyer raised the possibility of a “Russian trail,” noting that Ukrainian intelligence officers have previously been recruited by Moscow, saying, “We’ve had a lot of such rats, unfortunately,” though he offered no supporting evidence. Other theories involving corruption or organized crime have also been floated.
“All versions are being considered,” prosecutor Dmytro Tkachuk told the BBC, adding that one suspect had disclosed information suggesting a possible motive, though he declined to make it public, citing the ongoing investigation. Both Reut and Zhykovych were denied bail and remanded in custody as the case continues.
