CNN
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A helicopter carrying a team of Ukrainian Interior Ministry leaders crashed on Wednesday near a kindergarten and a residential area in the Kyiv region, killing at least 14 people, including all nine on board, officials said.
Twenty-eight more people were injured after Wednesday’s incident in Brovary, Ukraine’s health minister said later in the day, adding that 15 people, including four children, were hospitalized.
According to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service (SES), 14 bodies were found at the crash site, including a child and all nine people on board the helicopter (six ministry officials and three crew members). was included.
The Ukrainian National Police have confirmed the deaths of Interior Minister Denis Monastirsky, First Deputy Minister Evheny Yenin and Secretary of State Yury Lubkovits.
The Ukrainian Security Service, SBU, has launched an investigation into the crash, posting on Facebook that “several versions of the tragedy are being considered.”
“Flight rule violations, helicopter technical failures (and) deliberate actions to destroy helicopters.”
There is no indication from other Ukrainian officials of Russian involvement in the crash. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the incident as a “tragedy”.
A CNN team on the ground in the Kyiv area noted gray skies and very low visibility.
The helicopter that crashed was a Eurocopter EC225 “Super Puma”, a CNN crew member confirmed after seeing the remains of a flight manual in the rubble.
SES said the helicopter was “repeatedly involved in transporting personnel to emergency sites.”
An SES statement posted on Facebook said, “The crew of the aircraft had been trained to perform the task in difficult conditions and had the required number of flight hours.”
It landed near a kindergarten and a residential building, Oleksiy Kleva, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, previously said.
“At the time of the tragedy, the kindergarten had children and staff. At this time, all have been evacuated,” he wrote in Telegram.
Mayor Brovary Ihor Sapozhko has officially declared three days of mourning, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
“A dark day… There are no words to express the pain of loss,” Sapozico said in a Telegram post. “I extend my deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Zelensky called on attendees of the World Economic Forum in Davos to observe a moment of silence for all those who lost their lives in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In a written statement, Zelensky called the crash a “horrible tragedy” and added that he had ordered Ukrainian security services to “investigate all circumstances.”
Zelensky said that the interior ministry officials were “true patriots of Ukraine. May they rest in peace! May all those who lost their lives in this dark morning rest in peace!”
The official is believed to be the highest number of senior government officials killed since Russia invaded Ukraine last February.
Monastyrsky, 42, was a lawyer by training. After several years of teaching law and management at a university in his hometown of Khmelnytsky, he decided to turn “from theory to practice” and get involved in politics, according to a biography on the ministry’s website.
He worked on reforming Ukrainian law enforcement after the 2014 Euromaidan revolution, was promoted and appointed Minister of the Interior in July 2021.
Last year, Monastirski accompanied the CNN crew to an abandoned Russian military outpost in Chernobyl.
The news of Monastirski’s death sparked a wave of reactions from many of his counterparts and other foreign leaders.
“We mourn the tragic death of Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted his condolences to the victims, children and families of this horrific event near a kindergarten. I made a point.
British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley described Monastirski as “a true friend of Britain”.
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, also paid tribute to Monastirsky as “a great friend of the EU”. So,” he tweeted to join Ukraine.
Yenin, also 42, served as Ukraine’s deputy prosecutor general and deputy foreign minister before becoming Monastirsky’s first deputy chief in September 2021, according to the ministry’s website.
Lubkovychis, 33, was appointed minister in 2021, along with two other men.
