Russian man explodes grenade after ticket request

YEKATERINBURG, Russia (Reuters) - A Russian man blew himself up with a hand grenade on Tuesday shortly after train inspectors asked to see his ticket.

The inspectors thought they saw a hand grenade in the man's pocket and asked him to get off the commuter train at Asha station, in Chelyabinsk in the South Urals region.

He refused and instead demanded that the train go to Vladivostok, thousands of kilometres away on Russia's Pacific coast, said Liana Ergasheva of the local prosecutor's office.

"Inspectors wanted to check the papers of passengers who looked drunk, but he took out a grenade. He demanded the train should go to Vladivostok," Ergasheva said.

Passengers were evacuated and negotiations with the police had started before Mikhail Ershov, 43, triggered the explosion, blasting out windows in the train carriage.

"Ershov had taken the pin out, he then tried to put the pin back in the grenade, but instead it exploded," the prosecutor said.

The explosion did not kill or injure anyone else.

(Reporting by Natalya Shurmina; writing by Conor Sweeney; Editing by Gilles Castonguay)