KYIV: Sixteen people including Ukraine’s interior minister and other senior ministry officials were killed on Wednesday when a helicopter crashed outside Kyiv in the town of Brovary, the national police chief said.
The governor of the Kyiv region said earlier on Wednesday that a helicopter crashed near a nursery and a residential building earlier on Wednesday.
Two children were among the dead and 10 of them were in hospital, officials said.
A police spokesperson told the Suspilne public broadcaster that at least five people were hurt and that there were also a number of dead. Reuters could not immediately reach her for comment by phone.
“There were children and … staff in the nursery at the time of this tragedy. Everyone has now been evacuated. There are casualties,” Kyiv region governor Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Videos shared on social media showed a burning building and people could be heard screaming. Reuters was unable immediately to verify the footage.
It was not immediately clear what caused the helicopter to crash. There was no immediate comment from Russia, whose troops invaded Ukraine last February, and Ukrainian officials made no reference to any Russian attack in the area at the time.
“We are finding out information about casualties and the circumstances,” the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
