Damage to a kindergarten in a residential area of Brovary, Ukraine, after a helicopter crash on January 18. Anton Skiba/The Globe and Mail
Ukraine’s interior minister was among those killed in a horrific helicopter crash on Wednesday that also killed a child when the plane crashed into a kindergarten on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital.
At least 14 people – including Interior Minister Denis Monastirski and Deputy Minister Yevgeny Yenin – were killed in the incident. There was no immediate information on the cause of the crash, in which the helicopter went down on a foggy morning in the Kiev suburb of Brovary. Dozens of people, including children, were injured, many of them with burns from the fire that broke out in the kindergarten.
Video from the crash scene shows a huge orange fire raging in and near the kindergarten Wednesday morning. The screams of children and adults could be heard from the nearby blocks from which onlookers took pictures. The website of the “Izvorot” kindergarten says that 403 children attend the kindergarten.
Another video taken earlier in the day showed a helicopter flying low over the tree line near Brovary, a necessary measure to avoid detection by Russian forces.
“I heard the explosion, rushed to the window and saw a huge hole in the ground, a lot of fire everywhere and a little five-year-old child was burning,” said Olha Kudryavets, a 50-year-old resident of Brovary, who said the explosion happened at exactly 8:06 a.m. while she was feeding her cat.
“I wish I could immediately rush in and cover the burning child with my body. Then I saw a man running towards this little boy. He undressed the kid and stopped the fire. It sounded like our whole neighborhood was howling and screaming.
Firefighters wind hoses in front of the debris at the scene of a helicopter crash in Brovary, Ukraine. Ed Ram/Getty Images
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the crash had broad links to the war in his video address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “This is not an accident because it is due to war, and war has many dimensions, not only on the battlefields,” he said after asking the audience in Davos to stand and join him in a minute’s silence to honor the fallen . “There are no accidents during war. All these are results of the war.
Mr Monastirsky and Mr Yenin, along with other Interior Ministry officials, were reportedly on their way to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Despite Russia’s nearly 11-month-long invasion of Ukraine — which has seen all civilian airports decommissioned, although neither side has been able to gain full control of Ukrainian airspace — senior Ukrainian officials occasionally use military helicopters to travel across this vast expanse of country.
Nine of the dead were in the helicopter, and another five were killed on the ground. Twenty-five others were injured, including 11 children – and officials warned that the death toll could rise.
Although tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have died since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his war on February 24 last year, Mr Monastirsky is the most senior government official to have been killed. As interior minister, he was in charge of the country’s police and emergency services, which often responded to rocket attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Ukraine’s national police chief Igor Klymenko was appointed acting interior minister on Wednesday.
Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov said an investigation into the cause of the crash of the French Super Puma helicopter had begun. “We will make public the results of our investigation. I don’t want to discuss what happened beforehand,” he told a news conference in Kyiv, speaking alongside Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand.
Ms. Anand, who was in Kyiv to announce that Canada was donating an additional 200 armored vehicles to Ukraine, offered condolences to Mr. Reznikov for the crash “on behalf of 38 million Canadians, including 1.4 million Ukrainian Canadians origin’.
“The news about the helicopter crash in Brovary is incredibly tragic. I send my condolences to the families of the victims, to President Zelensky and to the Ukrainian people,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote on Twitter. “I wish the injured a speedy and full recovery. Canada continues to stand behind Ukraine.
Although an explanation was not ruled out, foul play was not immediately suspected. “Unfortunately, the sky does not forgive mistakes, as the pilots say, but it is really too early to talk about the reasons,” Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat said. He added that the investigation could take at least several weeks.
The State Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it was possible that the crash was caused by a violation of flight rules, a technical malfunction or deliberate destruction.
Although there has been no significant fighting in the Kyiv area since the start of the war, Russia regularly strikes the capital with cruise missiles and exploding drones. The latest attacks targeted the capital’s civil infrastructure systems.
With reports from the Associated Press
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