The Vagaries of War

"We saw wounded people, we saw children. There was a lot of fog here, everything was strewn all around."

"We could hear screams, we ran towards them."

"We took the children and passed them over the fence, away from the nursery as it was on fire, especially the second floor."

Glib, 17-year-old local resident

Firefighters inspect a building in Brovary damaged by the crash. The building housed a school for young children. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada)

 During war the civilian casualty rate is unpredictable, painful and devastating. Unusual, inexplicable incidents occur, far removed from what is expected in a theatre of war. An accident that seems to come out of nowhere with startling consequences begs for an explanation. This one certainly does. An investigation has been ordered, to try to determine the cause of a helicopter carrying Ukraine's interior minister and other government dignitaries that crashed in a suburb of the  capital, Kyiv.

To add to the perturbation and produce a truly black fog of tragedy, in its unexpected out-of-control descent, the helicopter crashed into a multiple-story nursery where children were being looked after. Altogether the crash killed 14 people, among them a child. The nursery building's entire side was left a charred, gaping vacuum above its entrance. The helicopter rotor blades rested there.

Debris from the crash was strewn over the playground with wreckage crumpled close to an apartment block. No mention of Russian attack involvement was made by dismayed government officials inspecting the carnage. Too early to determine what might have caused the crash, to begin with. An investigation has been ordered by President Zelenskyy into the "terrible tragedy. The pain is unspeakable", he said.

Ukraine's State Security Service, the SBU, would consider possible causes that would include a breach of flight rules, a technical malfunction, and possibly intentional destruction. Which would, needless to say, involve deliberate sabotage. There are known to be those on either side of the conflict who infiltrate with the intention of creating treacherous subversion.

An observer, 56-year-old Vitaly, watched as the aircraft fell, then crashed into the nursery grounds before debris was hurled into the block of flats. "I thought it was the engine from a rocket or something like that, something very large", he explained, shocked at what he had witnessed. The vagaries of conflict and incidents associated, however tangentially, with war never fail to shock as one's world is turned upside-down.

Of the dozens of injured, many were children suffering burns in the wake of the Super Puma helicopter's crash in the fog in Brovary on the outskirts of Kyiv. The most senior Ukrainian official to lose his life in this war, yet another casualty along with his first deputy and other ministry officials in the helicopter operated by the state emergency service. 

Ukrainian state emergency services went to work at the crash site that became a frantic rescue effort. The dead lay in a courtyard, some in uniform, covered with foil blankets draped over them. "Unfortunately, the sky does not forgive mistakes, as pilots say, but it's really too early to talk about the causes", air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said of the investigation that would take several weeks to conclude cause.

 

Authorities say a helicopter carrying senior Ukrainian officials has crashed near the country's capital, Kyiv, killing at least 14, down from an earlier figure of 18. Here, a view of the scene where the crash occurred in Brovary, about 25 kilometres northeast of Kyiv, on Wednesday. (Daniel Cole/The Associated Press)