Gunman takes hostages after killing two in northeast Ukraine
KYIV (Reuters) – A gunman was holding two people hostage at a petrol station in northeast Ukraine on Monday after killing two others, the interior ministry said.
The 48-year-old man opened fire with a rifle, killing the two people in the town of Lyubotin in the Kharkiv region and then drove to the petrol station where he took hostages.
The area is a long way from the conflict zone where government forces are fighting Russian-backed separatists and police seemed to be treating the incident as purely criminal.
“Police officers are currently negotiating the release of the hostages … and taking steps to apprehend the attacker,” the ministry said on its website. It gave no further details.
(Reporting by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
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