Armed Man Takes Hostages in Southwestern Russian Bank
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - An armed man took three hostages at a Russian bank in the city of Belgorod. He may be a client of the bank wishing to withdraw his deposit despite the bank losing its license.
The hostage situation is developing at a branch of the Zapadny bank in Belgorod, a city in western Russia in a region bordering Ukraine.
The armed man went into the bank on Monday morning and is now demanding a certain sum of money, police confirmed. There are three people being held hostage inside, according to preliminary information, RT reported.
Earlier unconfirmed media reports said the man is armed with a Saiga carbine and is demanding 25 million rubles ransom ($700,000).
Police have evacuated a school and a kindergarten near the branch as precaution. The region’s police chief, General Viktor Pesterev, is at the scene. Negotiations are underway.
The crime in progress comes on the day when the Russian central bank announced the revocation of Zapadny bank’s banking license. The bank had cooked its books and failed to comply with regulations on the amount of assets a financial organization must maintain to ensure its stability, the central bank said.
It was not immediately clear whether the hostage situation is in any way connected with the withdrawal of the license, which means that the bank’s clients will have to wait for some time before they can return their deposits.
But Life News tabloid says it has identified one of the attackers as 46-year-old Aleksandr Vdovin, a client who decided to reimburse his deposit at gunpoint.
The report added that the hostages are the head manager of the branch, a cashier and a janitor.
