KYIV (Reuters) – Ukrainian security forces disguised themselves when a television news crew captured an alleged kidnapper at a bank branch in Kiev on Monday while resting in a chair while talking to reporters he had sued with coffee and cigarettes.
The guy had entered the bank around noon, telling workers that he had a bomb in his backpack and asking them to call the police, according to The Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko.
Bank staff abandoned construction while branch manager was still held hostage, he said, adding that Uzbekistan suspect.
Television photographs showed him sitting with one leg resting on a chair in front of him containing the backpack.
A guy in a police vest walked into the room and announced that, according to the suspect’s requests, “coffee, cigarettes, journalists” had been admitted.
In a live-streaming television exchange, the guy heard that he was a holy spirit and criticized the authorities, claiming that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had not kept his promises.
“Presidents are puppets, they’re fools,” he said a while before the security forces caught him.
The hostage released unharmed.
“The suspect has been arrested. An urgent investigation is underway,” said Sergey Pun, a spokesman for the security service. “Construction is controlled by explosives experts to stumble upon explosive devices.”
This is the third hostage incident in Ukraine in recent weeks.
Last month, a gunman arrested after holding a captive captive on a bus captive for hours before releasing them after Zelenskiy agreed to publish a 2005 animal rights documentary narrated through Hollywood actor Joaquin Phoenix.
On July 23, another guy took a high-ranking police officer hostage in poltava city before being shot dead by police on Saturday. The hostage unharmed.
(Reporting through Pavel Polityuk, Natalia Zinets and Sergei Karazy; written through Matthias Williams; edited through Mark Heinrich, David Holmes and Giles Elgood)
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