Taras Kutovyi, Ukraine’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food in 2016-2018, died in a helicopter accident on Oct. 21, according to former Deputy Prime Minister Pavlo Rozenko and the Censor.net news website, which cited a source in law enforcement.
“Taras Kutovyi died tragically… Rest in peace, friend…” Rozenko wrote in a Facebook post.
Kutovyi’s helicopter was headed from Kyiv to a destination in Poltava Oblast, where it crashed near the village of Tarasenkovo. Kutovyi was piloting the helicopter and was the only person on board, according to the State Emergency Service.
Kutovyi was a minister in the government of former Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. In 2017, he resigned as minister, but the Parliament dismissed him only a year later.
He was elected to parliament with the Petro Poroshenko Bloc in 2014 and with the Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) party in 2012-2014.
Kutovyi was 43. He was married twice, has a son and a daughter.
