Sixteen people, including Ukraine’s interior minister and other senior ministry officials, died on Wednesday when a helicopter crashed on the outskirts of Kiev in the town of Brovary, the national police chief said.
The helicopter crashed near a nursery in the town of Brovary, on the eastern outskirts of the capital. Two children were among the dead and 10 were in hospital, Ukrainian authorities said.
The cause of the helicopter crash remains unclear and there was no immediate comment from Russia, which invaded Ukraine last February.
Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, who is responsible for police and security inside Ukraine, is the most senior Ukrainian official to die since the war began.
National police chief Ihor Klymenko said Monastyrsky was killed along with his deputy and other senior ministry officials.
“There were children and staff in the crèche at the time of this tragedy. All have now been evacuated. There are victims,” ​​Kyiv region governor Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram.
Reuters journalists at the scene saw several corpses wrapped in aluminum blankets in a courtyard near the building damaged by the accident.
“We are obtaining information about the victims and the circumstances,” wrote Deputy Head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko in Telegram.
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