Eighteen people, including Ukraine’s interior minister, other top ministry officials and three children, were killed when a helicopter crashed near a nursery outside Kyiv early Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said.
The regional governor said 29 people, including 15 children, were injured when the helicopter crashed in the residential area of Broweri on the northeastern outskirts of the capital.
Several bodies wrapped in foil blankets lie in a yard near the destroyed nursery. Emergency workers were on the scene. Debris was scattered on the playground.
National Police Chief Ihor Klimenko said Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky was killed in a helicopter belonging to the state emergency service, along with his first deputy, Yohni Yanin, and other officials.
“There were children and staff in the nursery at the time of the tragedy,” Oleksiy Koliba, governor of the Kyiv region, wrote on Telegram.
Authorities did not immediately explain the cause of the helicopter crash. There was no immediate comment from Russia, whose troops invaded Ukraine last February, and Ukrainian officials made no reference to a Russian attack in the region at the time.
Monastyrskyi, who was responsible for police and security inside Ukraine, would be the most senior Ukrainian official to die since the war began.
Separately, Ukraine reported heavy fighting overnight in the east of the country, where both sides have suffered heavy losses for little gain in intense trench warfare over the past two months.
Ukraine’s military said Ukrainian forces repelled attacks in the eastern city of Bakhmut and the village of Klyshchevka, just south of it. Russia has focused on Bakhmut in recent weeks, claiming last week to seize the mining town of Soledar on its northern outskirts.
After big Ukrainian gains in the second half of 2022, frontlines have tightened over the past two months. Kyiv says he hopes the new Western weapons will allow him to resume operations to retake the ground, especially heavy tanks that will give his troops mobility and protection to get past Russian lines. will provide
Western allies will gather at a US air base in Germany on Friday to pledge more arms to Ukraine. Attention is particularly focused on Germany, which has veto power over any decision to send its Leopard tanks, which are fielded by armies across Europe and widely considered the best suited to Ukraine.
Berlin says a decision on the tanks will be the first item on the agenda of its new defense minister, Boris Pistorius.
Britain, which broke a Western taboo over sending main battle tanks at the weekend by pledging its squadron of Challengers, has called on Germany to approve the Leopard. Poland and Finland have already said they would be willing to send Leopards if Berlin allows it.