One Dead After Military Helicopter Crashes Near Kyiv

One person was reported killed and two others injured when a Ukrainian military helicopter crashed in the Kyiv region on March 24.

The Kyiv regional prosecutor's office said a lieutenant was killed and two other officers, a major and a captain, were injured when the MI-24 helicopter crashed near the village of Vinnytski Stavy in the Vasylkiv district.

The helicopter belonged to a military unit in Ukraine's western Lviv region.

It is unclear what the crew's mission was in Kyiv.

The military helicopter's crash occurred amid a standoff between President Petro Poroshenko and the governor of the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Ihor Kolomoyskiy, over a leadership change at the Ukrnafta oil company.

Poroshenko said on March 23 that Ukrainian governors will not be allowed to have their own private armies after media reports said armed men who occupied the Ukrnafta building in Kyiv were linked to Kolomoyskiy.

Based on reporting by UNIAN and Interfax