BROVARY, Ukraine — A helicopter carrying top Ukrainian officials crashed in a fireball on Wednesday on the outskirts of Kyiv, killing a senior member of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s cabinet and more than a dozen people. others, while dealing a blow to Ukraine’s wartime leadership.
The interior minister, Denys Monastyrsky, a trusted adviser to Mr Zelensky who entered government with him in 2019, died in the crash along with his top deputy. Their deaths leave a vacuum in the department in charge of homeland security, which oversees the police, national guard and border patrol units.
Mr Zelensky called the accident near a kindergarten a “terrible tragedy” and directly linked the incident to Russia’s invasion of his country. Whether the fatal incident is accidental or not, “every death is the result of war,” he said in a passionate addresssent by video link to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as he urged Western allies to act faster to provide assistance to Ukraine.
The cause of the crash is unknown, but there is no initial indication that the helicopter was shot down. Ukrainian investigators said they were looking at mechanical failure, pilot error or sabotage as potential causes.
The government provides conflicting accounts of the day’s death toll, but late on Wednesday, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said 14 people, including a child, had died. Nine of them were in the helicopter, officials said. The service said 25 people are being treated in the hospital, including 11 children.
The crash in Brovary, an eastern suburb of Kiev, created a scene of chaos and horror at the kindergarten. The plane hit the ground just after 8 a.m., when parents were bringing their children.
Smoke rose from charred propellers and other burning debris scattered near a playground. Part of the kindergarten was on fire. Mothers tripped over broken glass, shouting their children’s names.
“There was a lot of panic,” said Anna Mayboroda, 37, who got her 3-year-old child out safely amid the chaos. “I also started shouting my daughter’s name because I didn’t know where she was.”
The incident is just the latest in a long string of tragedies for a weary country, coming just four days after a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the eastern city of Dnipro, killing it 45 people in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the country. war.
Mr. Monastyrsky is the highest-ranking government official to die since the Russian invasion began last February. He and other members of Mr. Zelensky’s trustee brain had been together since the early days of the war. They survived the initial assault on the capital, Kyiv, and what Ukrainian officials say was a Russian assassination plot, as well as numerous trips to the front lines despite heavy fighting.
Mr. Monastyrsky, like Mr. Zelensky, took office with a pledge to root out the corruption that has long plagued Ukraine’s government, especially given the Interior Ministry’s history of operating as a separate political fief.
President Biden, in a message of condolences to the families of those killed, cited those efforts, saying Mr Monastyrsky and his team were engaged in “important reform work aimed at strengthening institutions Ukraine in this war and in the future. “
“The United States stands with the people of Ukraine in the face of this tragedy and for as long as it lasts,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy chief of staff to the president of Ukraine, said that government officials on board had gone to a war zone.
A witness told Suspilne, Ukraine’s national broadcaster, that she saw the helicopter burn and spin before hitting the ground. Another witness told Ukrainian media he heard the helicopter circling before it crashed.
At the scene, the charred, crumpled remains of the helicopter, with some of its seats still visible, were piled up on the sidewalk and street right in front of a building, barely recognizable except except for structurally based propellers. A partially burned car poked out from the wreckage.
Videos and photos posted shortly after showed a long trail of flames, possibly caused by spilled fuel. A photo shows the damaged upper floor of the kindergarten.
Parliament of Ukraine said in a statement that those killed along with Mr. Monastyrsky included Yevhen Yenin, first deputy minister for internal affairs; and Yurii Lubkovich, state secretary of the ministry.
Yenin served in the international affairs department of the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office in 2019 when President Donald J. Trump asked Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens while withholding military aid to the country. Ukraine. Those events led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment by the House of Representatives. Mr. Yenin objected to complying with the request.
Mr. Monastyrsky’s portfolio gave him rights to a range of Ukrainians involved in the conflict with Russia. More than 200,000 soldiers and special forces police in units attached to the Interior Ministry fought in the war, although some direct command was transferred to the military. Monstyrsky, 42, was also a member of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, which sets security policy for Ukraine.
The ministry has also overseen rescue efforts following missile and drone attacks in Ukrainian cities, including a frantic effort to search for survivors among the ruins of Ukraine. Saturday’s attack in Dnipro. The ministry has also overseen teams clearing mines from recaptured territory, an operation in which dozens of people are killed or maimed each month.
Mr. Monastyrsky, a former lawyer before becoming a lawmaker, was elected to Parliament in 2019 as a member of Mr. Zelensky’s political party, the Servant of the People. He became chairman of the law enforcement committee, and then, in 2021, interior minister.
His focus is on overhauling the old Soviet law enforcement system to stamp out corruption and provide better services. However, like everyone else in Mr Zelensky’s government, he was thrust into a wartime leadership role following the Russian invasion last February.
“He was a very humble man, very brave,” Serhiy Leshchenko, an adviser to Mr. Zelensky’s chief of staff, said of Mr. Monastyrsky on Wednesday. “There are no scandals around him. He’s a good guy.”
Prime Minister of Ukraine, Denys Shmyhal, said on messaging app Telegram that Ihor Klymenko, head of the national police service, will carry out Mr. Monastyrsky’s duties until a new interior minister is appointed.
For the residents of Brovary, the helicopter deaths are another grim reminder of the hardships and tragedy of living through war. The town has been ravaged by Russian missile attacks for months, and early in the war, a Russian ground attack reached the outskirts of the community before Ukrainian forces pushed back. it.
On Wednesday, war-weary residents stood around the blockaded kindergarten, where windows were charred and broken, looking cold. Cell phone video shortly afterwards shows parents screaming.
Mrs Mayboroda had dropped her daughter Vika and was walking home when she heard “a loud noise, bumping, bumping”.
When she ran back to find her daughter, she heard people screaming that the kindergarten was on fire. She said she thought a Russian missile hit it.
“I saw debris and smoke,” she said through tears. “I saw this scene and thought maybe my baby doesn’t exist anymore.”
Firefighters sealed off the building, preventing crowds of panicked parents. After a while, someone called out, “Who is Mother Mayboroda?” and returned her daughter, uninjured.
“They gave me all my daughters back,” she said. “The most important thing is that my baby is alive.”
Yurii Shyvala and Oleksandra Mykolyshyn contribution report.
