Ukrainian police on Monday detained a man who threatened to blow up an explosive device at a bank in the nation's capital.
The man, identified as Sukhrob Karimov, a 32-year-old citizen of the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, entered a bank office in Kiev and said he had explosives in his backpack. He let bank clerks go and demanded that the authorities invite journalists so that he could make a statement.
Police burst into the room while the man was talking to journalists and detained him. Officials confirmed after the man was detained that he did in fact have explosives.
The incident follows last month's hostage-taking drama when an armed assailant seized 13 hostages on a bus in the western city of Lutsk and held them for more than 12 hours before surrendering to police. The assailant agreed to release the hostages following a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who agreed to post a video urging all Ukrainians to watch "Earthlings," a 2005 American documentary exposing humanity´s cruel exploitation of animals.
A few days later, a criminal suspect brandishing a hand grenade forced a senior police officer to drive him for hours through the countryside, chased by police. More than six hours after the pursuit began, the man left his hostage in the car and fled into a forest. Efforts to apprehend the assailant have been unsuccessful so far.
