According to sources, the interior minister of Ukraine was one of 16 individuals who died, including two children, when a helicopter crashed close to a kindergarten outside of Kyiv.
Cries could be heard at the incident site, which was destroyed by fire, in a video that went viral online after it happened. The cause of the collision was not immediately clear.
Igor Klymenko, the head of the national police, stated that “In total, 16 people are currently known to have died.”
Eight other people were onboard the chopper with the minister, Denys Monastyrsky.
According to officials, his first deputy minister and the state secretary also perished when the chopper crashed in the Brovary area.
The interior minister, who was 42 years old, was a well-known official in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s cabinet and was instrumental in informing the public about the deaths brought on by Russian missile strikes since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Ihor Klymenko, the head of the national police, said on Facebook that the helicopter belonged to Ukraine’s national emergency service.
Monastyrsky is the most well-known Ukrainian victim since the start of the Russian war, yet there is no evidence that the crash was anything other than an accident.
Separately, Ukraine reported heavy fighting overnight in the country’s east, where both sides had endured two months of severe trench warfare at great cost.
Attacks were defeated by Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut, a city in the east, and Klishchiivka, a settlement nearby, according to the Ukrainian military. In recent weeks, Russia has been concentrating on Bakhmut, and last week it claimed to have captured the mining town of Soledar on its northern fringes.
The last two months have seen a hardening of the frontlines following significant Ukrainian victories in the second half of 2022. According to Kyiv, new Western armaments, particularly large tanks that would provide its troop’s mobility and protection to drive past Russian lines, would enable it to resume an offensive to reclaim the land.
