Body bags and shock at Ukraine copter crash site

All nine on board were killed, including Ukraine’s Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrsky, and close aides, along with five on the ground, including a child.

A woman is consoled at the scene of Wednesday’s helicopter crash in Brovary. Picture: AFP

Dmytro Serbyn was sitting down to breakfast on Wednesday when he heard an unusual buzzing sound outside his home near Kyiv and then realised in horror that flames were shooting over the neighbourhood kindergarten.

He jumped into action, running towards the building in Brovary, climbing over its fence and smashing through windows to pull the terrified children to safety.

“Two policemen and another man were with me. We started evacuating children from the kindergarten. We took the children out into the yard to a safe place, we passed some of them over the fence,” Mr Serbyn recounted.

What soon became clear was that the fire was caused by the crash of a helicopter belonging to Ukraine’s emergency services. All nine on board were killed, including Ukraine’s Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrsky, and close aides, along with five on the ground, including a child. Another 25 people were wounded, including 11 children.

Mr Monastyrsky, 42, is the most senior Ukrainian official to have died since the start of the Russian invasion 11 months ago. His death was described by Denys Shmyhal, the Prime Minister, as a great loss to the country.

The helicopter was heading for “a hot spot where military hostilities are taking place”, Kyrylo ­Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, said. Those on board the French-made Super Puma helicopter included six ministry officials and three crew.

“[It] was circling and burning,” a local woman said in a video posted on Twitter. She said the pilot appeared to have steered the stricken aircraft away from a larger block of flats.

The latest tragedy to hit the war-scarred suburb of the capital left a residential building badly damaged, helicopter blades embedded in a car and a neighbourhood in shock.

“We pulled out one girl. I wrapped her in a jacket. Her face was wounded. She probably didn’t understand what was happening. She wasn’t trembling and wasn’t crying,” Mr Serbyn said.

Part of the wreckage near the kindergarten. Picture: AFP

She was so badly injured that her father did not immediately recognise her, he recounted. “Their faces were cut and covered in blood.”

There was an outpouring of condolences from Western capitals, as emergency service workers hauled body bags and removed victims from the scene.

There was no immediate claim from Kyiv that Moscow was involved, and President Volodymyr Zelensky said the crash was a consequence of war, a “terrible tragedy” that caused “unspeakable” pain.

“There are no accidents at war. These are all war results,” Mr Zelensky said in English, appearing by video link at the Davos Forum.

Brovary a year ago was the scene of fierce fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces after Moscow invaded and tried to seize Kyiv. Russia’s forces were pushed back but its missile strikes still trigger air raid alarms in the commuter town where 100,000 people lived before the war.

Anna, who declined to give her full name, told Agence France-Presse in the aftermath of the crash that she had moved to Brovary after her home in the Chernigiv region further north was destroyed in fighting last March.

Her three-year-old was in the kindergarten when the helicopter crashed. “She is alive, thank God,” Anna said. “It’s just shocking. We ran away from one disaster and got into this.”

Glib Kasyan, who was at a hospital near the kindergarten at the time of the crash, said he heard a hum followed by a boom.

“Then I heard screams. Children ran out. They began passing them over the fence,” Kasyan recounted to AFP.

The teenager said he joined in the rescue efforts by providing first aid. He took three children to safety in his apartment while they waited for their parents to collect them. “One boy had burns on his head,” he said.

“Another girl had cuts and bloody bruises. We treated the wounds with hydrogen peroxide, applied a bandage, gave her candy and turned on a cartoon.”

They were reunited with their parents shortly after.

Mr Serbyn, who had rushed away from his breakfast on seeing the flames, said at the moment of the crash he wasn’t scared.

“Now I understand what ­happened. I feel very sorry for the children and for the people who died.”

AFP