Editor's Note: This story is being updated as new details of the crash emerge.
The crash of a State Emergency Service helicopter in Brovary, a city just east of Kyiv, killed Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, his deputy, Yevhen Yenin, and the ministry's secretary Yuriy Lubkovych, as well as two children, National Police Chief Ihor Klymenko said in a Facebook statement on Jan. 18.
According to the State Emergency Service, 17 people, including four children, were killed in the crash.
Nine of the victims were on board the helicopter. According to the State Emergency Service, they included six employees of the Interior Ministry, including its top leadership, as well as three emergency service personnel.
Read also: Who were the top officials killed in the crash?
The State Emergency Service said that 25 people were injured, including 11 children.
The helicopter crashed next to a kindergarten and started a fire on the morning of Jan. 18, according to Kuleba.
Yuriy Ihnat, the spokesman of Ukraine's Air Force, said on television that it was too early to determine the cause of the crash, adding that the incident has to be investigated.
According to Ihnat, the crashed helicopter was the Aérospatiale AS.332 Super Puma, provided by France.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the President's Office, said that the leadership of the Interior Ministry was on its way to a "hot spot" of Russia's war when it crashed in Brovary.
During a briefing at the scene of the crash, Tymoshenko said that some of the hospitalized victims were on life support. Surviving children have been evacuated from the building, while emergency services are working to see if anyone remains trapped in the rubble. He said that given the morning hour, it's possible that the victims may include random pedestrians as well as parents taking their children to kindergarten.
President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his condolences to the loved ones of the victims in a statement published on Telegram, calling the crash "a horrible tragedy."
He said that he had instructed the Security Service, the National Police, and other agencies to find out all the circumstances of what happened in Brovary.
(Updated: )
