In the night of 27/28 April, a group of Croatian Ministry of the Interior officers managed to reach Kijevo,[17] and a Croatian police station was formally established in the village on 28 April.[18] The following day,[19] JNA troops, commanded by the JNA 9th (Knin) Corps chief of staff Colonel Ratko Mladić, moved in,[20] cutting all access and preventing delivery of supplies to Kijevo.[13] On 2 May,[21] a Croatian police helicopter made an emergency landing in Kijevo after sustaining damage caused by SAO Krajina troops gunfire.