The cause of the helicopter crash in a suburb of Kyiv that killed at least 14 people, including Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, will "have to be thrown into the fog of war category," but there are no indications that the Russian army shot the aircraft down, retired U.S. Brigadier Gen. Blaine Holt told Newsmax on Thursday.
"The Russian army would love to claim responsibility for this, but everything I'm hearing doesn't indicate that is the case," Holt, a Newsmax contributor, commented on "Wake Up America." "A lot of folks, the officials that I'm talking to, and Ukraine, want to know the answers to this. They're going to dig and try to find out what they can but these types of things in the middle of a war zone are very, very difficult."
Even if the Russians are behind the strike, "it is war and that is a valid military target," he added.
The Security Service of Ukraine said in a statement Thursday that it is investigating several possible causes for Wednesday's crash, including violations of flight rules, sabotage, or a technical malfunction, reports The Washington Post.
Monastyrskyi had been heading toward a "hot spot" on the war's front line when the helicopter crashed into a nursery school, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office.
Meanwhile, Holt, commenting on a Washington Post opinion piece by David Ignatius, said he doesn't "buy" the belief in the media that the war will end this year, and said that the war in Ukraine "should have been over before it ever started," as it was "deterrable before the first bullets were lobbed."
"It's absolutely high time for the direction to change, the course to be reversed," he said, also pointing out that former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of President Vladimir Putin who serves as deputy chairman of Putin's security council, warned NATO on Thursday if Russia loses, that could trigger a nuclear war.
"That means Russia is not doing so well, but the other part of this is, where is our leadership in diplomacy?" Holt said. "It seems to me that we have a lot of levers that we could take."
Meanwhile, NATO and some heads of state, like German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are "bickering and fighting over who is going to give weapons next," and that is not leadership, said Holt.
"It requires America to stand up on the leadership stage and look Russia in the eye" and demand that peace negotiations start, said Holt.
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