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A helicopter crashed in fog near a nursery outside Kyiv on Wednesday, killing 14 people, including Ukraine’s interior minister, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called a “terrible tragedy,” before calling for an investigation.
The crash set off a large fire, and an entire side of the local nursery building was charred. The Kyiv region’s governor said children and staff had been in the nursery at the time of the crash shortly after 8 a.m. (0600 GMT).
Several bodies lay on the ground of a courtyard, their boots sticking out from under blankets, after the helicopter – described by the air force spokesperson as a French Super Puma – slammed into a building in Brovary, northeast of the capital.
In his nightly video address, Zelensky said he had asked the country’s SBU intelligence service to launch a criminal investigation.
Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi died along with his first deputy, Yevheniy Yenin, and the ministry’s state secretary. Monastyrskyi was 42 and had been interior minister since July 2021.
Ukrainian officials have not suggested the crash was an attack by Russian forces waging war in Ukraine.
