Russia-Ukraine War: Kyiv's interior minister among 19 killed in helicopter crash, reason unknown

A helicopter carrying 15 people, including the interior minister, many senior ministry workers, and three children, crashed outside Kyiv on Wednesday morning, killing everyone on board. Russia and Ukraine are still fighting a war in Europe, which is in its 11th month.

After the helicopter crashed in Brovary, northeast of the city, at least one structure was burning and many victims were found blanketed on the ground of a residential courtyard near the damaged entrance of a block of flats.

The regional governor initially reported 18 fatalities, but the official death toll was subsequently revised down to 15. Twenty-five people, including ten children, were wounded.

The head of the national police force has verified the death of Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, who was appointed by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in 2021. He also revealed that his first deputy Yevheniy Yenin and the ministry's state secretary had passed away.

"As a result of the crash in Brovary, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine was killed. They were in the helicopter of the State Emergency Service," said Ihor Klymenko, the police chief.

According to the head of police and the emergency services, nine passengers on board the helicopter were killed. Social media videos of the incident showed a structure on fire and included the sounds of terrified passengers.

"There were children and ... staff in the nursery at the time of this tragedy," Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram.

This tragedy occurs eleven months into Russia's invasion, as Ukrainians are still grieving the loss of 45 people on Saturday, when a Russian missile strike on an apartment building in the city of Dnipro, located in the country's central east, left them all dead.

The reason for the helicopter's crash was initially unclear. The Ukrainian government never mentioned a Russian invasion when it happened. The Attorney General's Office has said that it is conducting an investigation and taking all potential reasons into account.

"Unfortunately this happened with a state emergency service helicopter which was fulfilling its task," said Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat.

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It might take many weeks, he warned, to fully probe the incident. He said that the helicopter was a French Super Puma and was used by all Ukrainian law enforcement forces.

The 42-year-old Monastyrskyi is a professional lawyer and politician who was elected to represent Zelenskiy's Servant of the People party in the 2019 parliamentary election.

When Arsen Avakov resigned in July 2021, he was appointed to succeed him as interior minister and then became leader of the legislative Committee on Law Enforcement Affairs.

(With inputs from Reuters)