STORY: Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, his deputy and five other high-ranking ministry officials were killed when their helicopter plummeted in thick fog into a nursery on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv on Wednesday (January 18).

Another seven people were killed, including one child, in the crash. Officials are still investigating the cause.

Zelenskiy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, paid their respects to the victims' relatives inside the hulking Ukrainian House cultural centre in central Kyiv. A crowd of mourners snaked outside toward Independence Square.