Man armed with a grenade takes senior policeman hostage in Ukraine, two days after bus passengers were taken captive by gunman
A man armed with a grenade has taken a senior policeman hostage in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava, Ukraine’s deputy interior minister said today.
‘Negotiations are ongoing to force the attacker to surrender to the police without harming himself or others,’ Anton Gerashchenko said on Facebook.
It comes just two days after 13 bus passengers were taken captive by a gunman in the country during a 12-hour standoff in which he threatened to blow up the vehicle.
Maxim Krovishey, 44, lobbed a grenade out of the vehicle and fired twice at officers after storming the bus at around 9.25am on Tuesday in Lutsk, in the northwest of the country.
An assailant, who seized a long-distance bus with 13 hostages, after police officers captured him in the city centre of Lutsk, 250 miles west of Kiev, Ukraine late on Tuesday
Weapons, including an assault rifle, a revolver, a flick knife and extra magazines, that belonged to an assailant who seized a long-distance bus with 13 hostages on Tuesday, are pictured on the ground
Pictured: A grenade held by the attacker, who launched one of them from the bus at one point in the attack on Tuesday, which fortunately did not detonate
Krovishey spoke over the phone with relatives of those trapped on the bus and threatened to blow up the vehicle unless senior politicians admitted that they were ‘terrorists.’
The gunman – who claimed to have explosives planted in another area of the city – released an elderly woman, a teenager and a young pregnant woman towards the end of the standoff.
At around 9.45pm local time, police announced that the assailant had been detained and that all remaining hostages had been freed without injury.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov was personally leading negotiations with Krovishey. His deputy, Anton Herashchenko, said the case was being treated as ‘terrorism’.
More follows.