Europe

Ukraine honours interior minister and other senior officials, killed in helicopter crash

Aircraft went down in Kyiv last week, killing 13 in total including one child

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky (left) offers relatives his condolences during the funeral ceremony of Ukrainian interior minister Denys Monastyrsky and other employees of his department at the Ukrainian House in Kyiv on January 21st. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty

Sat Jan 21 2023 - 14:44

A tearful Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy attended a memorial service on Saturday to commemorate seven senior interior ministry officials killed in a helicopter crash this week, a fresh blow to a nation already grieving its many war dead.

Interior minister Denys Monastyrskyi, his deputy and five other high-ranking ministry officials were killed when their French-made Super Puma helicopter plummeted amid fog into a nursery on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv on Wednesday.

Another seven people were killed, including one child, in the crash. Officials are still investigating the cause of the crash.

The helicopter went down just days after at least 45 people were killed in a Russian missile attack that partially levelled a block of flats in the southeastern city of Dnipro.

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On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are fending off an unrelenting Russian onslaught in the east, where Moscow has expended large resources for incremental advances 11 months into its full-scale invasion.

“The indescribable sadness is covering the soul,” Mr Zelenskiy wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday. “Ukraine is losing its best sons and daughters every day.”

Mr Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, paid their respects to the victims’ relatives inside the hulking Ukrainian House cultural centre in central Kyiv. A crowd of mourners snaked outside toward Independence Square.

Kyrylo Budanov, the military intelligence chief, described Monastyrskyi's death as “a huge loss”.

“If not for [Monastyrskyi], everything could have been completely different,” he told Ukrainian media, referring to the resistance Ukraine mounted after Moscow’s February 2022 assault.

“He is a true hero of this country.”

Monastyrskyi had been flying to a location near the frontline, a police spokesperson said on Thursday. – Reuters

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2023

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