Ukrainian Interior Minister, 18 Others Die as Helicopter Crashes New Nursery School

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Eighteen people, including Ukraine’s interior minister and three children, were killed after a helicopter crashed near a nursery school in Kyiv today, officials said.

The crash occurred near a kindergarten and a residential building in Brovary, an eastern suburb of Kyiv, head of the Kyiv regional administration Oleksiy Kuleba said on Telegram. The helicopter belonged to the state emergency service of Ukraine.

Ihor Klymenko, chief of the national police, wrote on Facebook that the “leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs died as a result” of the crash. He said that Denys Monastyrsky, the interior minister, as well as deputy minister Yevhen Yenin and state secretary Yuriy Lubkovich were among those killed.

Klymenko said nine of the people killed were aboard the helicopter when it crashed. Additionally, 29 people, of which 15 are children, were injured and are being treated in hospital, according to Kuleba.

Videos and photographs shared by Ukrainian authorities showed the smouldering wreckage of the helicopter near the entrance of a building and a body on the ground nearby.

Emergency service workers are on the scene and authorities have launched an investigation.