(Brovary) Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was killed on Wednesday near Kyiv in the crash of his helicopter that killed at least 18 people, including three children, while traveling to the front line in full war with Russia.
“The purpose of this flight (was to go) to one of the hot spots in our country where the fighting is taking place. The interior minister was going there,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy chief of the presidential cabinet, told Ukrainian television.
According to a message from the governor of the region, Oleksiï Kouleba, on Telegram “there are also 29 injured, including 15 children”, which raises fears of an even heavier toll.
President Volodymyr Zelensky described the crash as a “terrible tragedy”, adding that he had asked the national police to investigate the circumstances of the tragedy.
The minister’s death is “a great loss,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmygal said on Telegram.
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, lamented on Twitter the death of “a great friend of the EU”.
In images circulating on social networks, the remains of the helicopter could be seen mixed with debris, near a car destroyed under the weight of the metal. Firefighters and police were on the scene, according to an AFP team.
PHOTO SERGEI SUPINSKY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
In addition to Denys Monastyrsky, 42, his first deputy Yevgeny Ienin and the secretary of state of the ministry Youriï Lubkovych are among the victims. They were on board the aircraft alongside six other people, the head of Ukraine’s national police said in a statement.
A former lawyer by profession, the minister had been in office since July 2021. In 2019, he became a member of the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, under the label “Servant of the people”, the presidential party.
The crash took place in Brovary, a town of some 100,000 people that borders Kyiv’s eastern suburbs. Significant fighting had opposed Ukrainians and Russians there when troops from Moscow tried to force the lock of the capital in the first weeks of their invasion which began on February 24, 2022.
At the time of the tragedy, “children and employees” of the nursery school located near the scene of the accident were on site, said Mr. Kouleba.
PHOTO SERGEI SUPINSKY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
New tragedy
According to footage posted on social media, a massive fire broke out after the helicopter crashed near a residential building.
No information on the cause of the tragedy was immediately released.
According to Mr. Kouleba, “the circumstances” of this accident are “being worked out”.
The aircraft that crashed belonged to the State Service for Emergency Situations under the Interior Ministry, according to a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force.
One of the last major accidents of this type in recent years in Ukraine dates back to September 2020 when 26 people died in the crash of an Antonov-26 near Kharkiv (northeast).
This new tragedy comes four days after a deadly strike in Dnipro, eastern Ukraine, attributed to Russian forces by Ukrainian officials.
A missile had ravaged a residential building on Saturday, killing at least 45 people, including six children, one of the deadliest bombings since the start of the Russian invasion.
The youngest victim in Dnipro “was 11 months old”, lamented Tuesday evening the deputy head of the cabinet of the Ukrainian presidency, Kyrylo Tymoshenko.
Under the rubble, the emergency services extracted the wounded, but also lifeless bodies, trapped under huge sections of concrete.
This new strike on a civilian target has caused great emotion among the Ukrainian population, as the country has been fighting against the Russian invasion for almost 11 months, often in very difficult conditions.
Moved, President Zelensky vowed to bring “everyone guilty of this war crime” to justice, pointing directly to the Russian army as responsible for this carnage.
Moscow, for its part, has firmly denied any involvement in this bloody strike, as in previous episodes.