Chopper Crash Kills Ukraine's Interior Minister

A helicopter carrying Ukraine’s interior minister crashed into a kindergarten in a foggy residential suburb of Kyiv on Wednesday, killing him and about a dozen other people, including a child on the ground, authorities said, Malak Harb reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, who oversaw police and emergency services, is the most senior official killed since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.

Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, who oversaw police and emergency services, is the most senior official killed since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, 2022.

His death, along with the rest of his ministry’s leadership and the entire crew of the French-made Puma helicopter, was the second major calamity in four days to befall Ukraine after a Russian missile struck an apartment building in Dnipro City, killing dozens of civilians, Andrew Meldrum, Angela Charlton, and Yuras Karmanau also reported for AP.

There was no immediate word on whether the helicopter crash, which occurred on a foggy morning in the capital’s eastern suburb of Brovary, was an accident or related to the war. Ukrainian authorities immediately opened an investigation. No fighting has been reported recently in the capital region.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by video link — said the crash had a broad connection to the war.

“This is not an accident because it has been due to war and the war has many dimensions, not just on the battlefields,” he said after asking the Davos audience to join him in a standing minute of silence to honor those killed.

“There are no accidents at wartime. These are all war results.”

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