Top Ukrainian officials and others, including children, killed as a helicopter crashes near a nursery in Brovary, outside Kyiv.

Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, his deputy Yevhen Yenin and State Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Yurii Lubkovych were among those killed on Wednesday, according to Ihor Klymenko, chief of Ukraine’s National Police.

It was not immediately clear what caused the helicopter to crash in the town of Brovary.

A total of 22 people were injured, including 10 children. Earlier, officials and media reports said the helicopter crashed near a kindergarten.

Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler reporting from Kyiv said that the deaths are a “huge blow” for the country “on a government level”.

“This is Ukraine’s interior minister, one of the highest posts in the country; his deputy,” Butler said. “These are key figures in Ukraine’s government at a time when the government is at war with Russia, so this will be a huge blow to the country no doubt.

“You can only imagine some of the conversations happening right now, in Kyiv in those government circles as to what’s going to happen next.”

More soon…