Monastirski is the highest Ukrainian official to be killed since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine nearly eleven months ago.
The importance of the Ministry of the Interior in the war is crucial. The Police forces and the Emergency Services are under its orbit, as well as the National Guard and the Border Guard, two bodies directly involved in the fighting.
Among the fatalities of the tragedy there is a child. The minister’s deputy, Evgeni Yenin, and the Secretary of State for the Interior, Yuri Lubkovich, also died. At the moment, the Ukrainian authorities did not point to a possible Russian involvement and opened an investigation to clarify the circumstances.
At the close of this edition, everything seemed to point to an accident, although the president, Volodímir Zelenski, left the door open to the possibility that the episode responds to a Russian attack by stating that “there are no accidents in war. It was a consequence of the conflict.”
Dmitro Serbin, who was in his apartment when the helicopter went down, ran to help the children as soon as he saw the flames above the nursery.
“The children were crying, looking for their parents. Their faces were cut and covered in blood…” she recounted. “We took a girl out, I wrapped her in a jacket. She had wounds on her face, but she did not shake or cry. The girl was so disfigured that her father did not initially recognize her, Serbin said. Twenty-five people were hospitalized, the rescue services indicated in their latest bulletin.
Route
The destination of the flight was not entirely clear. According to Ukrainian presidential adviser Kirilo Timoshenko, the helicopter was heading to the front lines of the war with Russia, although kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said it was going to the site of a missile attack in the city of Dnipro.
Zelensky called the accident a “terrible tragedy.” “The pain is indescribable,” he emphasized, while ordering a thorough investigation.
Monastirski, a lawyer by profession, had been in office since July 2021. He was a member of the president’s party, was married with two children.
“He was young, very creative, a good person, always proactive and supporting to defend the lives of our citizens,” said the mayor of kyiv.
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, was one of the first to react. “We join Ukraine in grief after the tragic helicopter crash. Monastirski was a great friend of the European Union,” he tweeted.
In turn, the German Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, offered kyiv help to investigate the causes of the accident.
There were also condolences from France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Silence
Russia did not say anything about the tragedy and kept up its pressure, both on the eastern front, where its army is trying to advance, and in the form of statements.
President Vladimir Putin assured that he has “no doubts” about his country’s victory in the offensive against Ukraine.
The president reiterated that, according to him, Russia is facing a “neo-Nazi regime” in Ukraine, and affirmed that it will continue to “help” the population of separatist eastern Ukraine. “Victory will be ours,” he assured.
Its foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, compared the actions of Western countries against his country to the “final solution” of the Nazi regime to exterminate the Jews.
Putin and Lavrov made the comments nearly 11 months after the start of the offensive in Ukraine, where Russian forces have suffered a series of setbacks in recent months in the face of a Ukrainian counterattack.
As a result of these difficulties on the ground, Putin ordered the mobilization of 300,000 reservists, and a campaign of bombing of the Ukrainian energy infrastructures.
Last week, the Russian army and mercenaries from the Wagner group announced the seizure of the town of Soledar, in eastern Ukraine, located near the city of Bakhmut, which Moscow has been trying to conquer for months.
Source: Ambito
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