A Chilean journalist who was detained in Ukraine has claimed that he was only set free after cops saw his colleague’s Maradona tattoo – and he now credits his release to “the hand of God”.

Foreign correspondent Daniel Matamala was in Ukraine covering Russia’s invasion when he and his team were arrested at a police checkpoint and taken to a police station.

He took to Instagram Stories to report: “Today, at one of the checkpoints along the route, the police seized our documents, cameras, telephones, and sent us to the police station. The first interrogations were tense: it is a country at war and spies or saboteurs are suspected.”

The tension reportedly increased, as the journalists and the Ukrainian police could not understand each other.

Matamala added: “Until one of the policemen saw my Argentine colleagues’ passports and among a load of words in Ukrainian, he said two that we understood: ‘Messi’, ‘Maradona’. That’s when everything changed. Our great cameraman showed that he has a tattoo of Diego Maradona on his calf.”

That was apparently reason enough for the Ukrainian cops to let the journalists on their way, with Matamala adding: So they set us free and gave us our equipment back. We were saved by the hand of God.”

The ‘hand of God’ was a goal scored by the late Argentine football legend Diego Maradona with his hand against England in the 1986 World Cup.

Though illegal under football rules, the referees did not have a clear view of the play and, as such, awarded it.

Argentina would go on to win the match 2-1. They would then go on to lift the World Cup trophy.

Kyiv has dubbed alleged Russian agents inside Ukraine “saboteurs”. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has claimed saboteurs are in the Ukrainian capital and are looking for him to kill him.