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Police ended a bus hijacking in southern Russia without bloodshed Monday, persuading the gunman to swap roughly 30 passengers for a police officer, who captured him. The Caucasus Mountains region has been plagued by hostage-taking sprees in recent years, and Monday’s episode was one of the few to be resolved swiftly. The hijacker, armed with a grenade and an automatic rifle, commandeered the bus and forced the driver to go to the airport in Makhachkala, capital of the southern republic of Dagestan, police and Russian news agencies said. Authorities spent several hours negotiating with the hijacker, who demanded $100,000 in U.S. currency and a getaway helicopter, a police spokesman said.
