MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/. Two men, armed with a non-lethal pistol, briefly took a female shop assistant hostage in downtown Moscow late on Friday, the prosecutor’s office of the Russian capital said.

"According to preliminary information, two men entered a shop and took a female assistant hostage. One of them had a non-lethal pistol. The men were detained," prosecutors said.

Moscow Police said earlier in the day that a flower shop assistant was taken hostage in Moscow’s Taganskaya Street.

The attacker was detained. The woman was not injured.

A law enforcement source told TASS that, according to preliminary information, the hostage-taker was "inadequate."

The Moscow department of the Investigative Committee said a criminal case was launched on charges of hostage-taking and attacking a law-enforcement officer.

According to investigators, one of the miscreants fired his weapon at a law enforcement officer during the operation to detain him.