Image - AP
Brovary, Ukraine - Ukraine's interior minister was among at least 16 people killed on Wednesday when a helicopter crashed in a suburb of the capital Kyiv, setting fire to a nursery packed with children.
According to the latest official toll, nine people on board and at least seven on the ground were killed when the French-made Super Puma helicopter went down in Brovary on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv.
Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, who oversaw Ukraine’s police and emergency services, is the most senior official to die since Russia invaded nearly 11 months ago. His death, along with two others from his ministry, was the second calamity in four days for Ukraine, after a Russian missile strike on an apartment building killed dozens of civilians.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said that 17 people were killed in the crash, including nine people who were aboard the helicopter and four children who presumably were on the ground. It said 25 people have been injured, including 11 children. Early official reports gave slightly different casualty figures, including a higher death toll.
Witnesses said debris is scattered over the muddy playground. In a courtyard lay several dead interior ministry staff, their blue uniforms and black boots visible from under foil blankets draped over the bodies. A large chunk of the aircraft had landed on a car, destroying it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the crash as “a terrible tragedy” on a “black morning.”
“The pain is unspeakable,” he wrote on Telegram.
British Home Secretary Suella Braverman called the 42-year-old Monastyrskyi “a leading light in supporting the Ukrainian people during Putin’s illegal invasion.” She said she was “struck by his determination, optimism and patriotism.”
President Vladimir Putin defended his invasion again Wednesday — offering a variation on arguments he has used previously. The Russian leader told a gathering of veterans that Moscow’s actions were intended to stop a “war” that has raged for years in eastern Ukraine, where Russia-backed separatists have battled Ukrainian forces.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated that the goals behind the invasion are “determined by Russia’s core legitimate interests.”
Fighting is continuing in eastern Ukraine around the city of Bakhmut and the nearby salt mining town of Soledar, governor of the Donetsk region Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
A total of 14 cities and villages were shelled in the partially occupied Donetsk region over the previous 24 hours, Ukraine’s presidential office said. Two civilians were wounded.
Wednesday’s helicopter crash comes at a particularly dark period in the war for Ukraine, just days after the Russian strike on the apartment building in southeastern Ukraine killed 45 people, including six children — the deadliest attack on civilians since the spring.
-AP/Reuters