Police detain man threatening to blow up bank in Ukraine’s capital

Police detained a man who allegedly threatened to set off an explosive device at a bank in Ukraine’s capital and demanded to speak with journalists Monday.

The man, identified as Sukhrob Karimov, a 32-year-old citizen of the Central Asian nation of Uzbekistan, entered a bank office in Kieve and said he had explosives in his backpack, police said.

He let the clerks go and told authorities to invite journalists to listen to him make a statement.

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Officers burst into a room in the bank while the man was talking to a journalist. Officials initially said after the suspect was detained that police found elements of an explosive device but later clarified that the suspect had been bluffing and no actual explosives were found.

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 in the city of Poltava, a criminal suspect brandishing a hand grenade forced a senior police officer to drive him for hours through the countryside, chased by police.

The man eventually left his hostage in the car and fled into a forest. After a search that lasted more than a week, the man was tracked down and killed by police Saturday when he offered resistance to the arrest.