(Brovary) Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was killed in a helicopter crash near Kyiv on Wednesday that killed at least 14 people, as NATO announced ‘heavier and more modern weapons’ for the Ukrainian forces.
The helicopter, a Super Puma EC-225 (Airbus Helicopters) according to the State Service for Emergency Situations (SES) to which it belonged, crashed on Wednesday morning in Brovary, near Kyiv.
“The kindergarten building was hit, and the fire later spread to the windows of a 14-storey building and three cars,” SES said on Telegram, adding that there were nine people at the scene. on board, including the minister and his deputy.
According to a latest report from the SES, there are 14 dead, including one child, and 25 injured in hospital, including 11 children.
On the spot, AFP journalists saw debris near apartment buildings, a door, two crushed cars. And bodies wrapped up and taken on a stretcher, one by one, to a van.
“I heard a buzzing sound, turned around to look out the window, thought it was a (drone). I saw flames,” said Dmytro Serbine, one of the first to help.
“Our pain is unspeakable”
This crash, which occurred four days after a Russian missile strike that killed 45 people in Dnipro, in eastern Ukraine, aroused great emotion.
“Our pain is unspeakable,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky, referring both to the fact that the crash affected a kindergarten and the death of the Minister of the Interior, his deputy Yevgeny Yenine and the Secretary of State for the ‘Yuriy Lubkovych interior.
Ukraine’s security services said they were considering all avenues, including “deliberate destructive action”.
“The purpose of this flight (was to go) to one of the hot spots in our country where the fighting is taking place,” said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy chief of staff to the president.
PHOTO SERGEI SUPINSKY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Ukrainian officials, like Prime Minister Denys Chmygal on Telegram, called the death of Denys Monastyrsky, 42, a former lawyer who joined Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, a “great loss”.
In Washington, President Joe Biden and his wife Jill “mourn with all those bereaved by this heartbreaking tragedy,” the White House said. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, lamented on Twitter the death of “a great friend of the EU”.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland), NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg assured that the member countries of his organization would provide Kyiv with “heavier and more modern” weapons.
The Ukraine Contact Group, which brings together some 50 countries led by the United States, met on Friday at the US base in Ramstein in Germany to coordinate continued aid to Kyiv. “The main message will be increased support with heavier and more modern weapons,” Stoltenberg said.
Shortly before, the Ukrainian president had launched by videoconference a “call for speed” in decision-making to help Ukraine, while Germany in particular is reluctant to authorize the delivery of Leopard tanks to the country.
“Tyranny advances faster than democracies,” lamented Volodymyr Zelensky. “The time the free world uses to think is used by a terrorist state to kill.”
PHOTO MARKUS SCHREIBER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressing participants of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
The Leopards are among the modern, Western-designed heavy tanks that Kyiv is clamoring for from its allies and which experts say will be crucial in the upcoming battles in eastern Ukraine.
On the other hand, the United States is not ready to provide Ukraine with its most advanced heavy tanks, the Abrams, a senior Pentagon official said on Wednesday, justifying the refusal with maintenance and training issues.
Lavrov’s “anti-Semitic” words
Russia, whose forces have suffered huge losses and major military setbacks in recent months, meanwhile continued to exert pressure, both on the front in eastern Ukraine, where its army is trying to retake advantage, only by statements from the Kremlin.
Le président Vladimir Poutine a ainsi assuré mercredi n’avoir « aucun doute » sur une victoire russe, près d’un an après le début de l’opération, et maintenu que la Russie affrontait un « régime néonazi » en Ukraine.
Son ministre des Affaires étrangères, Sergueï Lavrov, a été plus loin, comparant les actions des Occidentaux contre son pays à la « solution finale » du régime nazi pour exterminer les Juifs.
« Tout comme Napoléon a mobilisé presque toute l’Europe contre l’Empire russe, comme Hitler a mobilisé et conquis la plupart des pays européens pour les lancer contre l’Union soviétique, aujourd’hui les États-Unis ont monté une coalition » contre Moscou, a déclaré M. Lavrov.
Leur tâche est « la même : la “solution finale” à la question russe. Tout comme Hitler voulait résoudre la question juive, désormais, les dirigeants occidentaux […] unambiguously say that Russia must suffer a strategic defeat,” he added.
These statements provoked a strong reaction from Canada, which summoned the Russian ambassador Oleg Stepanov “to confront him with the brutality of the Russian attacks against the civilian populations in Dnipro and to condemn, by looking him straight in the eye, the anti-Semitic comments of the Russian Foreign Minister,” Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said at a press conference in Toronto on Wednesday.
On the humanitarian front, the new president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, is traveling to Moscow on Thursday and Friday to meet with Russian government officials and discuss urgent humanitarian needs and access to prisoners of war, a trip that follows his mission to Ukraine in December, according to a press release.