At least 16 people, including Ukraine’s interior minister and two children, have been killed in a helicopter crash near a kindergarten outside the capital, Kyiv.
The governor of the Kyiv region said earlier on Wednesday that a helicopter crashed near a nursery and a residential building. Two children were among the dead and 10 were in hospital, officials said.
Ukraine’s national police chief, Ihor Klymenko, said in a statement that the helicopter was carrying Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, Denys Monastyrskiy, as well as eight others.
Klymenko said his deputy minister, Yevhen Yenin, and the state secretary, Yuriy Lubkovych, also died in the crash.
What caused the helicopter to crash in the town of Brovary, a commuter town that was the scene of fierce fighting early in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not immediately clear.
Klymenko said 16 people were confirmed dead, including the two children and a further 22 victims are hospitalised including 10 children.