Ukraine honours minister, officials killed in helicopter crash

• Seven senior Interior Ministry officials were killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week.
• The cause of the crash is still being investigated by authorities.
• President Volodymyr Zelensky attended a memorial service on Saturday.

KYIV  – A tearful Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended a memorial service on Saturday to remember seven senior Interior Ministry officials killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week, a new blow to a country already reeling from the loss of many wars dead.

Denys Monastyrskyi, his deputy, and five other high-ranking ministry officials were killed when their French-made Super Puma helicopter crashed into a nursery on Kyiv’s eastern outskirts on Wednesday.

In the crash, seven more people were killed, including one child. The cause of the crash is still being investigated by authorities.

“The indescribable sadness is covering the soul,” Zelensky wrote on Saturday in a Telegram post. “Every day, Ukraine loses its best sons and daughters.” Inside the hulking Ukrainian House cultural center in central Kyiv, Zelensky and his wife, Olena Zelenska, paid their respects to the victim’s relatives. Outside, a line of mourners snaked its way toward Independence Square.

Meanwhile, Germany faced a strong backlash from allies on Saturday for refusing to supply Ukraine with its famed Leopard tanks to help it fight Russia in the nearly year-long conflict.

On Friday, more than 50 countries agreed to provide Kyiv with billions of dollars in military hardware, including enough armoured vehicles and ammunition to push back Russian forces.

However, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told reporters on the sidelines of the event at the US Ramstein Air Base that “we still cannot say when a decision will be taken, and what the decision will be when it comes to the Leopard tank.”

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