Officials said that the Kyiv helicopter crash on Wednesday morning claimed the lives of at least 15 persons, including three children and the interior minister of Ukraine.
After the helicopter crashed in Brovary, northeast of the city, it set at least one structure on fire and left many dead covered in blankets on the ground of a courtyard in a residential neighborhood close to the damaged entrance of a block of apartments.
The regional governor reported 18 fatalities, while emergency services later reported 15 fatalities and 25 injuries, including 10 children.
Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, who was nominated in 2021 by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was confirmed to have died by the head of the national police. He added that the ministry’s state secretary, as well as his first deputy, Yevheniy Yenin, passed away.
“As a result of the crash in Brovary, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine was killed. They were in the helicopter of the State Emergency Service,” police chief Ihor Klymenko said.
According to the police chief and emergency services, nine of those who were confirmed dead were aboard the helicopter. Social media users posted videos of the crash that featured a burning structure and wailing victims.
“There were children and… staff in the nursery at the time of this tragedy,” Kyiv region governor Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The incident occurs in the eleventh month of Russia’s invasion, when 45 people were killed in an apartment building in a Saturday Russian missile attack on the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine.
Looking Into Causes
What caused the helicopter to crash was not immediately known. At the time, no mention of a Russian attack in the region was made by Ukrainian officials.
The Prosecutor General’s Office stated that it was looking into and taking into account all potential causes.
“Unfortunately this happened with a state emergency service helicopter which was fulfilling its task,” Air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said.
He predicted that the disaster investigation would likely take at least a few weeks. According to him, the helicopter was a French Super Puma that was being used by all law enforcement forces in Ukraine.
“Unfortunately, the sky does not forgive mistakes, as pilots say, but it’s really too early to talk about the causes,” he said in a TV broadcast.
As a candidate for Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party in the 2019 parliamentary elections, interior minister Monastyrskyi, 42, won a seat.
After Arsen Avakov resigned as interior minister in July 2021, he was appointed chairman of the legislative Committee on Law Enforcement Affairs.
“This is truly heart-breaking. Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrsky was a leading light in supporting the Ukrainian people during Putin’s illegal invasion,” British Home Secretary Suella Braverman on Twitter.
“When we spoke in October I was struck by his determination, optimism and patriotism.”
Suella Braverman
After Arsen Avakov resigned as interior minister in July 2021, he was appointed chairman of the legislative Committee on Law Enforcement Affairs.
