Ukraine's Interior Minister dies when the helicopter he was traveling in crashed in the kyiv region

Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastirski and other senior ministry officials are among the 18 killed in a helicopter crash in the Ukrainian city of Brovari, located in the kyiv region, local authorities confirmed Wednesday.

The head of the Ukrainian police, Igor Klimenko, has indicated in a message on his account on the social network Facebook that "a helicopter of the State Emergency Service has crashed in Brovari".

"As a result of the accident, the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has died: the minister, the deputy minister [Yevheni Yenin] and the secretary of state [Yuri Lubkovich]," he said.

For now, the cause of the accident has not been disclosed.

In total there are 18 fatalities, including three children.

Of the dead, at least nine were on board the device.

“All the specialized services work on site”, he added.

Minutes before, the governor of kyiv, Oleksi Kuleba, had detailed that the helicopter "has fallen near a nursery and a residential building."

“At the time of the tragedy, children and employees of the institution were in the nursery.

Everyone has been evacuated ”, he had highlighted through his Telegram account.

Kuleba has estimated that 29 people have been injured, including 15 minors, reports Reuters.

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Deputy adviser to the Ukrainian presidency Kirilo Timoshenko has said that "the number of reports about victims in Brovari is increasing."

"We don't have time to recover from one tragedy and we already have another one," he lamented, referring to the Russian attack last Saturday against a residential building in the city of Dnipro that caused the death of 45 civilians and the disappearance of 19 more.

The importance of the Ministry of the Interior in the war is crucial.

Under Monastirski's orders were not only the police forces, but also the National Guard and the Border Guard, these two departments directly involved in the fighting at the front.

The reasons for the incident will take weeks to clarify, according to the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Yuri Ihnat: “It is too early to talk about the causes.

There are multiple factors that can cause this catastrophe.

Air accidents need time to be investigated.

kyiv and its surroundings, including Brovari, woke up this morning covered in fog.

A video broadcast on Telegram of the helicopter shortly before crashing, recorded by a neighbor, showed the aircraft flying at a very low altitude and in poor visibility weather conditions.

Civil aircraft and helicopter traffic is closed in Ukraine due to the threat of being shot down.

The movement of helicopters is exceptional and always at a very low altitude, to avoid being detected by enemy radars.

In kyiv it is not often to see helicopters fly over the city, and if they do, it is licking the roofs of the buildings.

The Ukrainian authorities have always avoided revealing how the members of the Government and its president, Volodímir Zelenski, move around the country.

Iiulia Mendel, Zelenski's former spokesperson, added that Monastirski had left by helicopter for positions near the front.

Sources from the president's environment consulted by this newspaper last year indicated that part of the route that Zelenski takes on his trips can be done by helicopter.

Zelensky suffered a car accident last September on one of his trips to eastern Ukraine.

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