BULAVALI, Ukraine (Reuters)Jan,18 – At least 15 people, including Ukraine’s interior minister, were killed when a helicopter crashed near a kindergarten on the outskirts of Kyiv on Saturday morning, Ukrainian officials said.
His helicopter, a French-made super puma, crashed in a residential area outside Brovalli, on the eastern outskirts of the capital, according to authorities, nine of him on the plane and three of him on the ground. He killed six people, including children. Authorities had previously put the initial death toll at 18 for him.
The local governor said 29 people were injured, including 15 children.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the crash a terrible tragedy and said the total death toll had not yet been determined and ordered an investigation. The front has strengthened in the past two months after Ukraine posted significant gains in late 2022. Kyiv says it hopes that new Western weapons, especially heavy tanks, will be able to resume attacks to retake land.
Western allies will meet at a US air base in Germany on Friday, pledging to deliver more weapons to Ukraine. Germany, in particular, has a veto over the decision to send the Leopard tank, which is used by armies across Europe and is widely regarded as the most suitable for Ukraine.
Berlin says a decision on tanks is the first item on the agenda of this week’s new defense minister, Boris Pistorius. Britain, which broke the Western taboo of sending main battle tanks over the weekend and promised a squadron of challengers, urged Germany to endorse the Leopards. Poland and Finland have already agreed to send leopards if Berlin allows.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Lithuania’s foreign minister said he was confident there would be a decision to send tanks.
“I hear this when I talk to other leaders, so I’m confident. There’s dynamics,” Gabrielius Landsbergis said in an interview with Reuters. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was scheduled to address the forum later on Wednesday, but his government is believed likely to wait until later in the week to announce a decision on tanks.Zelensky, Ukraine was also scheduled to speak with Davos via video link.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow did not see the prospect of peace talks and that talks with Zelensky were unlikely. Russia has said negotiations are possible only if Ukraine recognizes Moscow’s claim to Ukrainian territory. Kyiv says it will fight until Russia withdraws from all of Ukraine.
In his remarks, Lavrov likened the Western approach to Russia to Hitler’s “Final Solution,” a Holocaust plan to kill all Jews in Europe. In the central Ukraine city of Dnipro, 45 civilians were killed by a rocket that hit an apartment building on Saturday, including six children, including an 11-month-old boy, it said. Zelensky said in a late-night video address.
Ukrainian authorities called off the search for survivors on Tuesday. About 20 people are missing in the rubble after the attack. This is the deadliest for civilians in his three-month Russian missile bombing campaign against a remote city.
Moscow denies intentionally targeting civilians. It launched a so-called special military operation in Ukraine last year, saying Kyiv’s ties to the West pose a security threat. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced from their homes in what Kyiv and the West call a gratuitous aggression to conquer Ukraine and conquer their land.
