- Title: UKRAINE: Security holds anti-terrorism drill at Israel embassy
- Date: 23rd May 2013
- Summary: KIEV UKRAINE (MAY 23, 2013) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF ISRAELI EMBASSY IN UKRAINE WITH SHOOTING OUT OF WINDOW MASKED UKRAINIAN SECURITY SERVICE AGENT STANDING WITH ISRAELI NATIONAL FLAG IN BACKGROUND AN AGENT PLAYING THE ROLE OF TERRORIST SHOOTING FROM EMBASSY WINDOW SECURITY AGENT POINTING HIS GUN TOWARDS BUILDING GIRLS TAKING PICTURES FROM BALCONY IN NEARBY BUILDING VARIOUS O
- Embargoed: 7th June 2013 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Ukraine
- Country: Ukraine
- Topics: Conflict
- Reuters ID: LVA2UZKLNWCNPMXKUTUMRRCLSVR6
- Story Text: The anti-terrorism centre of Ukraine's Security Service on Thursday (May 23) conducted a drill at Kiev's Israeli embassy.
The drill started with agents, playing the role of terrorists, shooting out of the third-storey window of the embassy building.
Crowds of passers-by and local residents quickly gathered to watch as a helicopter dropped special units onto the building's roof, and the agents repelled down the embassy's exterior wall, blasting open a window, and storming through the building's first-floor entrance.
The drills played out a hostage-taking scenario, with special forces bundling people out of the building, padding them down, and then hurrying them into waiting vehicles.
At a synagogue in a different part of the city, bomb squads went through a explosive-dismantling drill.
"There is no security threat to the Israeli or any other foreign diplomatic mission in Ukraine. But, as you understand, there is a lot of tension in the world, thus we have to be prepared to react to any threats or challenges," the head of Ukraine's Security Service anti-terrorism centre Petro Shatkovsky said.
The Israeli ambassador to Israel, watching the drill from across the street, said the manoeuvres gave him confidence.
"Drills like this, and the effect from it, gives us a feeling of complete security for our embassy and other missions on the territory of Ukraine," Israeli ambassador to Ukraine Rueven Din El said.
Bomb attacks are a rare occurrence in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine.
In April of 2012 a bomb exploded in Dnipropetrovsk, 400 km (250 miles) southeast of the capital Kiev, wounding 27 people. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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