BROVARY, Ukraine
Ukraine’s interior minister died Wednesday in a helicopter crash near the capital that killed at least another 18 people, including other officials and three children, authorities said.
Workers pass the scene where a helicopter crashed on civil infrastructure in Brovary, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. |
Interior Minister Denys
Monastyrskyi, who oversaw Ukraine’s police and emergency services, is the most
senior official to die since Russia
invaded nearly 11 months ago. His death, along with two others from his
ministry, was the second calamity in four days to clobber Ukraine, after
a Russian
missile strike on an apartment building killed dozens of civilians.
There was no immediate word on
whether the crash, which was near a kindergarten, was an accident or related to
the war. No fighting has been reported recently in the Kyiv area.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy said the crash was “a terrible tragedy” on a “black morning.”
“The pain is unspeakable,” he
wrote on Telegram.
British Home Secretary Suella
Braverman called Monastyrskyi “a leading light in supporting the Ukrainian
people during Putin’s illegal invasion.” She said she was “struck by his
determination, optimism and patriotism.”
Monastyrskyi’s deputy Yevhen
Yenin and State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yurii Lubkovych
were also among those killed, according to the chief of Ukraine’s National Police.
Senior officials routinely travel by helicopter during the conflict.
Nine of those killed were
aboard the chopper when it crashed in Brovary, an eastern suburb of the
Ukrainian capital, Ihor Klymenko said. The others who died were apparently on
the ground.
Kyiv Regional Governor Oleksii Kuleba said 18 people overall were killed, including three children, and that 25 were injured. Ukraine’s Emergency Service, however, put the death toll at 15. It was not immediately possible to confirm if that was old information or a revised figure.
At the scene of the crash, at
least four bodies on the ground were covered by reflective sheets as officials
cleared helicopter debris from a kindergarten playground. Wreckage also sat on
top of a charred vehicle and a building.
“It is too early to talk about
the reasons,” for the crash, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Forces, Yurii
Ihnat, told a television channel. He said an investigation could take some
time.
The helicopter was a Super
Puma supplied by France, he added.
The Security Service of
Ukraine is conducting an investigation, prosecutor general Andriy Kostin said.
“For now, we are considering all possible versions of the helicopter crash
accident,” he said on Telegram.
Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi |
“Another very sad day today —
new losses,” said Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, dabbing teary eyes and
pinching her nose as she responded to the news while at the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The forum held 15 seconds of
silence after opening the session to honor the Ukrainian officials killed.
“Haven’t had time to recover
from one tragedy, there is already another one,” said the deputy head of the
Ukrainian presidential office Kyrylo Tymoshenko.
No comments:
Post a Comment