At least 17 people have died after a makeshift home for elderly people outside the Ukrainian capital Kiev caught fire in the early hours of this morning.
"The bodies of 16 people have been found at the site of the fire," the Ukrainian emergencies ministry said in a statement.
The home was located in the village of Litochki outside Kiev.
It is believed that 35 people were at the shelter when the fire broke out.
Eighteen people have been rescued and five of them are being treated in hospital.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has been notified of the blaze, the government said in a statement, adding that Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman had tasked officials with creating a special commission to look into the fire.
Mr Groysman expressed condolences to the families of those who had perished in the "terrible tragedy," the government said in a statement.
In post-Soviet countries like Ukraine and Russia outdated infrastructure is still in widespread use and managers often take a lax approach to fire safety.
Such fires often claim the lives of some of the most vulnerable people such as the elderly or those with mental illness.
