Ukraine man invents murder to get snow cleared

A Ukrainian man reported a fictitious murder in the hope that police would clear his snow-covered road when they came to arrest him, regional authorities said on Monday.

The man called police on Saturday evening to tell them he had killed his mother's partner by stabbing him in the chest.

"But at the same time he immediately warned the police that they should come to him along with a snow plough, because there is no other way to get to him," Yuliya Kovtun, police spokeswoman for the northern Chernihiv regional police, told reporters.

She said officers did not take a snow plough and were able to get to the man's house in an SUV.

"Immediately after arriving, they discovered that the relative was indeed at the house, but in one piece and unharmed -- no one had attacked him," she said, adding that the would-be killer immediately confessed to making a fake call.

Kovtun said municipal services had ploughed the road earlier on Saturday but he "was not satisfied with the quality of the clearing".

The man, from the village of Grybova Rudnya, now faces a fine of up to 119 hryvnias (3.50 euros; $4.30) for reporting a false complaint.

Ukraine has been hit with record snowfall in recent days, with some 50 centimetres (20 inches) blanketing the country.

The ex-Soviet nation of 40 million is one of the poorest countries in Europe, and has struggled to battle endemic corruption and upgrade ageing infrastructure.

Agence France-Presse