Ukraine’s interior minister, 17 others die in helicopter crash

The helicopter fell near a nursery outside Kyiv

Eighteen people including Ukraine's interior minister, other senior ministry officials and three children were killed on Wednesday morning when a helicopter crashed near a nursery outside Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.

The regional governor said 29 people were also hurt, including 15 children, when the helicopter came down in a residential area in Brovary, on the capital's northeastern outskirts. Several dead bodies draped in foil blankets lay in a courtyard near the damaged nursery. Emergency workers were at the scene.
Debris was scattered over a playground.

Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi. Pics/AFP

National police chief Ihor Klymenko said Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi had been killed alongside his first deputy, Yevheniy Yenin, and other officials in a helicopter belonging to the state emergency service.

Also Read: Russian missiles attack Kyiv: Ukraine officials

"There were children and...staff in the nursery at the time of this tragedy," Kyiv region governor Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram. Officials did not give an immediate explanation of 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 area at the time. Monastyrskyi, responsible for police and security inside Ukraine, would be the most senior Ukrainian official to die since the war began.

Heartbreaking attack: Pope

Pope Francis on Wednesday condemned the Russian missile strike that killed 45 people in Dnipro as heartbreaking. As in nearly all of his public appearances since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, Francis appealed for peace at his weekly general audience in the Vatican. "Last Saturday another missile attack caused many civilian victims, among them children. I share in the heartbreaking pain of the family members," he said. "The images and the accounts of this tragic episode are a strong appeal to all people of conscience. One cannot remain indifferent," he said.

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