Ukraine Helicopter Crash: Kiev Abandoned Russian Mi-8s in Favor of French Pumas – Expert

Fourteen people were killed and 25 more injured after a Puma helicopter crashed in the Kiev suburb of Brovary on Wednesday, an incident that also claimed the lives of Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky and his first deputy Yevgeny Enin.

The French helicopter Super Puma H225 has been dogged by technical problems since it made its maiden flight in 2000. The helicopter has been involved in an array of deadly crashes, Russian military expert Yevgeny Matveyev has told Sputnik.

His comments come after Ukrainian media reported on Wednesday that a French-made H225 helicopter that crashed near Kiev earlier that day had a spate of technical glitches.

The helicopter crash occurred near a kindergarten and residential buildings in the Kiev suburb of Brovary. In it, 14 people were killed and 25 more injured. Officials said that the death toll included Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky and his First Deputy Yevgeny Enin.

Firefighters work near the site where a helicopter crashed near a kindergarten in Brovary, outside the capital Kiev on January 18, 2023

© AFP 2023 / SERGEI SUPINSKY

Matveyev explained that Ukraine purchased fifty-five H225s in 2014 after the French banks, which owned them and used them for conducting offshore flights and transporting oilmen to sea platforms, grounded them when global oil prices plummeted.

Kiev reportedly started to use them in 2018 for searc­h-and­-rescue missions after Ukrainian authorities decided to stop using Soviet-­made helicopters, such as the Mi-8, according to Matveyev.

“They [Ukraine] gave up [on Russian helicopters] because these vehicles are ‘bad’ and the French ones are ‘good’. […] However, the Mi-8 undoubtedly outshines the Super Puma H225 in terms of size and carrying capacity,” the Russian expert emphasized.