WEB DESK
At least 18 people, including Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky have died in a helicopter crash near a kindergarten outside the capital Kyiv. Police said, 22 victims are also in hospital, including 10 children.
Police identified the helicopter as a State Emergency Services aircraft, but provided no details about the cause of the crash.
Nine of the people who died were onboard the helicopter. Among the dead are several top officials of the interior ministry. Mr. Monastyrsky was appointed interior minister in 2021. Officials said that at the time of the crash children and employees were in the kindergarten. The scene of the crash in the town of Brovary is located some 20 kilometers northeast of Kyiv.
It was not immediately clear what caused the helicopter to go down. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post he had directed authorities to investigate the circumstances surrounding the crash.
Zelenskyy called the crash a “terrible tragedy.” He said the exact number of casualties was still being determined, but that at the time of his post the dead included at least three children.
“The pain is unspeakable,” Zelenskyy said.
“Tragedy far from the frontline, in Brovary,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted. “My condolences to relatives of the victims, especially children.”
He added that Monastyrskyi and Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Yenin were “true Ukrainian patriots.”