Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky was killed on Wednesday January 18 near kyiv in the crash of his helicopter which killed at least 14 people, including a child from a nursery school, while he was going to the line front in the middle of the war with Russia.
Ukraine: at least 14 dead, including the Minister of the Interior, in the crash of a helicopter near kyiv
A former lawyer by profession, the 42-year-old minister had been in office since July 2021. In 2019, he became a member of the Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, under the label “Servant of the People”the presidential party. “During the war, he was always proactive and supported and defended the lives of our citizens. It was a great treasure for his family.” and “for all our country”said the mayor of kyiv Vitali Klitschko in Davos (Switzerland), where he was taking part in the World Economic Forum.
• What happened ?
The aircraft, a Super Puma EC-225 (Airbus Helicopters, ex-Eurocopter) according to the State Service for Emergency Situations (SES) to which it belonged, crashed at 8:20 a.m. in Brovary, a town of 100,000 inhabitants of the suburbs of kyiv. “The kindergarten building was hit, and the fire later spread to the windows of a building with fourteen floors and three cars”said the SES on Telegram, adding that there were nine people on board the aircraft, including the minister and his deputy.
Ukraine: at least 14 dead, including the Minister of the Interior, in the crash of a helicopter near kyiv
On the spot, you could see the charred remains of the helicopter leaning against the blackened facade of an apartment building, partially crushing a car, and the partially destroyed kindergarten building, around which the emergency services were still busy.
“I called a friend who lives there. He told me that something fell on preschool, that he helped three six-seven year olds out and took care of them”said a teenager on the air of the Ukrainian channel Sulpine. “He told me to come, we helped clear cars to allow help to arrive”.
According to a latest assessment of the SES revised downwards at the beginning of the afternoon, there are 14 dead including a child, and 25 hospitalized wounded including 11 children. The clearing of the rubble was still in progress. A previous report had reported 18 dead including three children.
• Why did the device crash?
“Our pain is unspeakable”, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an online message, referring both to the fact that the crash had affected a kindergarten, and to the death of the Minister of the Interior, his deputy Yevgeny Ienin and the Secretary of State for Interior Yuriy Lubkovych. He said he ordered an investigation into the causes of the crash.
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The Security Services of Ukraine have indicated that they are considering all avenues, including a “deliberate destructive action”. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser offered kyiv the ” support “ of Berlin in these investigations.
“The purpose of this flight (was to go) to one of the hot spots in our country where the fighting is taking place”, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy to the chief of staff of the president, on Ukrainian television. Different sources claimed that the aircraft was going to Dnipro, or to the Kharkiv region (north-east).
• What is the reaction of the international community?
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, lamented on Twitter the death of“a great friend of the EU”. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the British Prime Minister’s Office, the United States Embassy in particular expressed their condolences to Ukraine.
Russia, which made no comment, continued at the same time to exert its pressure, both on the eastern front of the country where its army is trying to regain the advantage, and through declarations from the Kremlin or its spokesperson
President Vladimir Putin thus assured this Wednesday that he had ” no doubt “ on a Russian victory which is ” guarantee “almost a year after the start of the Russian operation on Ukrainian territory.
