Editor’s Note: This is a developing story. It is being updated with more information.
A man who threatened to blow up a bank in central Kyiv has been arrested after a few hours holding its branch director hostage on Aug. 3, according to Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko.
The suspect, preliminarily identified as a 32-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan Sukhrob Karimov, arrived at the bank at noon on Aug. 3, told employees that he had a bomb in his backpack and asked them to call the police, Gerashchenko said. He did not seem to voice any other demands.
The suspected claimed that the bomb would detonate if he was killed because the detonator was attached to his leg with a cable.
Law enforcement block the Volodymyrska Street as they negotiate with a man who seized a branch of the Universal Bank and threatened to blow it up on Aug. 3, 2020 in Kyiv. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
The suspect may be mentally unstable, judging by his social media posts, Gerashchenko said.
The incident comes just two weeks after a day-long hostage situation in western Ukraine that some feared could inspire copycat criminals.
A photo released by Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko shows the man who threatened to blow up a bank in central Kyiv before he was detained by Security Service operatives. The suspect was preliminarily identified as a 32-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan Sukhrob Karimov, according to Gerashchenko. (Facebook / Anton Gerashchenko)
How it unfolded
A representative of the Ukrainian Universal Bank called the police at noon to report that a man was threatening its employees with a bomb at the bank’s branch in the Leonardo business center at 17/52 Bohdana Khmelnytskoho St.
The bank’s employees were able to leave the building, but the head of the branch stayed behind voluntarily.
The police then started a special operation to detain the suspect, but later the Security Service took full control of the operation.
Law enforcement block off the Volodymyrska Street in front of the Universal Bank branch where a man threatened to blow up a bomb on Aug. 3, 2020 in Kyiv. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
Law enforcement first attempted to negotiate with the terrorist, because they were not sure whether he had real explosives, Gerashchenko said. Then, however, operatives of the Security Service of Ukraine captured that suspect while a negotiator distracted him, according to a video broadcasted by the 112 TV news channel.
“The terrorist was captured alive. There was no explosion. Bomb disposal technicians are working on site. Next, there will be a trial and a long prison sentence,” Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook.
A man threatening to blow up a bank in Kyiv is being detained by Ukraine’s Security Service operatives on Aug. 3, 2020 in a video broadcasted by the 112 TV news channel and published by the Kyiv Operatyvnyi local news media. (Kyiv Operatyvnyi)
Copycat?
The bank hostage situation comes after a string of terrorist attacks in Ukraine.
On July 21, an armed man took 13 people hostage on a bus in Lutsk, a city of 212,000 people located 420 kilometers west of Kyiv on July 21.
He threatened to blow up the bus unless the authorities fulfilled his demands, which included replacing the heads of major state bodies and making numerous top politicians publicly declare themselves terrorists.
The hostages were eventually freed after President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to another demand of the terrorist: to record and publish a video message online in which he endorsed an animal rights documentary. After that, the armed man surrendered.
None of the hostages were hurt, but the incident and its resolution led some to wonder whether copycat criminals might also try to use hostage-taking to gain access to the country’s leaders.
Ukrainian special forces officers escort the man, who threatened to detonate a bomb at the Ukrainian Universal Bank branch in Kyiv on Aug. 03, 2020. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
Two days later, on July 23, a man armed with a hand grenade took a policeman hostage in Poltava, a city 200 kilometers east of Kyiv, and demanded a car to escape arrest after authorities attempted to detain him for serial car theft. The police complied, and the man escaped into the woods nearby.
After a week at large, the man was killed by police special forces on Aug. 1, when he took a new hostage and exploded a grenade. The hostage was not harmed.
In Kyiv, there was also a series of bombings with homemade explosive devices on July 17 and 27. Similar explosives were found around Kyiv on July 20 and 21 and denoted in a controlled environment by the police. Two men suspected of planting these explosives were arrested.
