Ukraine minister and children among 16 dead in helicopter crash near kindergarten

KYIV: At least sixteen people, including Ukraine's interior minister and three children, were killed in a helicopter crash near a kindergarten outside Kyiv on Wednesday (Jan 18).

The helicopter went down next to the kindergarten and a residential building in Brovary, a commuter town for the capital Kyiv that was the scene of fierce fighting early in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It was not immediately clear what caused the helicopter to crash. 

Amateur footage circulating on social media showed what appeared to be the charred remains of the aircraft mixed with debris from nearby buildings and a car crushed by large shards of metal. Cries could be heard at the scene which was consumed by a fire.

Among the dead were several top officials of the interior ministry, including Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky and his first deputy minister Yevgeniy Yenin, said the head of national police Igor Klymenko.

Monastyrsky, responsible for the police and security inside Ukraine, would be the most senior Ukrainian official to die since the war with Russia began.

The 42-year-old father of two was appointed interior minister in 2021. 

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the helicopter crash a "terrible tragedy".

"I have instructed the Security Service of Ukraine, in cooperation with the National Police of Ukraine and other authorised bodies, to find out all the circumstances of what happened," he said on the Telegram messaging app. "As of this minute, three children died. The pain is unspeakable." 

European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, offered their condolences in the wake of the crash.

“Saddened by the tragic death of the Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky. Thoughts for all the victims of this terrible event that occurred near a kindergarten, for the children and the families,” tweeted Mr Macron. “France offers its condolences to its Ukrainian friends."

The Kyiv region governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, initially said 18 people had been killed but the deputy head of the president's office later revised the death toll to 16, adding 30 others had been injured, including 12 children.

AFP journalists in Brovary saw emergency workers and firefighters working at the scene. The rotary blades of the helicopter cut into a nearby building could also be seen.

Klymenko said earlier that nine of those killed were on board the helicopter when it crashed.

The town of Brovary is located about 20km northeast of Kyiv and was among the urban hubs around the capital that Russian troops had tried to capture after invading Ukraine last year.

Regions around the capital are no longer the scene of fierce fighting after Russian forces were pushed back, but a series of Russian missile strikes have disrupted power supplies across the country, including in the Kyiv region.

The crash came on the heels of a tragedy that saw 45 people including six children die when a Russian missile struck a residential building in the eastern city of Dnipro at the weekend.