NOVOSIBIRSK, December 12. /TASS/. An armed man has stolen over 9 million rubles ($86,300) from a bank in downtown Novosibirsk in Russia’s Siberia, the Interior Ministry’s regional branch said in a statement.

"We received a report about a bank robbery in the Central District of Novosibirsk. Police officers are conducting the necessary investigative and search activities to establish all details of the incident and locate the criminal," the statement reads.

The Novosibirsk regional prosecutor’s office, in turn, said that a criminal investigation had been launched.

Earlier, footage was posted on the VKontakte social media platform showing a man holding something resembling a gun and threatening bank personnel while robbing money from a Locko Bank office on Gogol Street in Novosibirsk. TASS reached the bank for comment but did not receive any answer by the time of publication.

Locko Bank is a universal commercial bank founded in 1994 and headquartered in Moscow. It was blacklisted by the US in the summer of 2023.