Ukraine helicopter accident kills 18, including minister

On Wednesday, a helicopter crashed near a daycare outside of Kyiv, killing eighteen people, including the interior minister and three children.

Brovary, a suburb of Kyiv, saw severe combat at the outset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the chopper crashed into a daycare and a residential structure.

Social media users shared amateur video that seemed to show the charred remnants of the aeroplane among building rubble and a vehicle that had been crushed by big pieces of metal. There were cries coming from the site, which was completely engulfed by flames.

“In Brovary, a state emergency service chopper went down. The jet accident claimed the lives of the interior ministry’s top officials “Igor Klymenko, chief of Ukraine’s police force, made this claim in a statement.

He said that Denys Monastyrsky, the minister of the interior, and Yevgeniy Yenin, his first deputy, had both been assassinated.

Including three youngsters, the latest dead toll from the disaster was 18, according to Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of the Kyiv area.

“Thirty-nine people were hurt, 15 of them youngsters. We provide them all they need,” “Moreover, he said.

Rescue efforts are now underway.

Reporters from AFP were on the scene in Brovary and observed first responders and firemen at action. It was also possible to observe the helicopter’s rotors slicing through a neighbouring structure.

Nine people were on board the helicopter when it crashed, according to prior statements by Klymenko of the Ukrainian police agency.

A tragic loss.

In July of 2021, 42-year-old Denys Monastyrsky, a skilled lawyer, took office as interior minister of Ukraine.

He was married and have two children and played an important role in the political party of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“They are my coworkers and friends, and I value them much. What an unbearably sad loss. Sincere sympathy to their loved ones,” “according to advisor Anton Gerashchenko.

There were no initial reports or speculations on what may have caused the incident. There is a high incidence of aviation accidents in Ukraine due to the widespread usage of ageing infrastructure, most of which dates back to the Soviet period.

The September 2020 accident of an Antonov-26 jet in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv was one of the bloodiest occurrences in recent memory, killing 26 persons, most of them air cadets.

About 20 kilometres (12 miles) to the north-east of Kyiv sits the town of Brovary, which was among the metropolitan centres surrounding the capital that Russian soldiers had sought to conquer following their invasion of Ukraine last year.

Russian troops have been driven back from the capital region, but a series of missile attacks have interrupted power supply throughout the nation, including in the Kyiv area.