Ukraine honours minister killed in crash
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A tearful Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has attended a memorial service to commemorate seven senior Interior Ministry officials killed in a helicopter crash this week as Russian forces claimed to have made more gains in the country’s south.
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.
On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces are fending off an unrelenting Russian onslaught in the east, where the Kremlin has expended massive resources for incremental advances 11 months into its full-scale invasion.
“The indescribable sadness is covering the soul,” Zelenskiy wrote in a Telegram post on Saturday.
“Ukraine is losing its best sons and daughters every day.”
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 Russia’s February 24 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.
The Russian military said on Saturday that it made territorial gains in a new offensive in southern Ukraine.
“In the Zaporizhzhia region, more favourable lines and positions were taken through attacks by units of the Eastern Military District,” Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in Moscow.
According to him, the Russian attacks killed 30 Ukrainians and disabled several military vehicles.
The information could not be independently verified.
Earlier, Russian military bloggers had reported on an offensive in the Orikhiv and Huliaipole area, where the first Ukrainian defence lines had supposedly been overrun.
According to the Rybar blog, which is said to be close to the Russian Defence Ministry, several villages were captured in the push.
The ministry has not yet officially confirmed this.
On Saturday morning, the Ukrainian general staff had only spoken of shelling in the region but not about a Russian advance.
with DPA
Reuters
