A helicopter crashed near a kindergarten outside the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, causing casualties, the region’s governor said Wednesday.
Sixteen people including Ukraine’s interior minister and other senior ministry officials were killed, 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.
In a video that circulated online from the aftermath of the incident, cries could be heard at the scene which was consumed by a fire.
“In the city of Brovary, a helicopter fell near a kindergarten and a residential building,” the head of the Kyiv regional administration, Oleksiy Kuleba, said on Telegram.
“At the time of the tragedy, children and employees were in the kindergarten,” he added. “There are casualties.”
He said that medics and police were working at the scene.
The town of Brovary is located some 20 kilometres (12 miles) northeast of Kyiv.
Russian and Ukrainian forces fought for control of Brovary in the early stages of Moscow’s invasion until Russia’s troops withdrew in early April.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to pro-Western Ukraine on February 24 last year.
-Agencies
