Ukrainian police on Tuesday freed 13 hostages and arrested an armed man who held them on a bus for more than 12 hours, after the nation’s president agreed to the man’s demand to post a movie recommendation on social media.
The security service said a joint operation had resulted in all the hostages being released unharmed after a standoff in Lutsk with the man, who threatened to detonate an explosive device unless his strange requests were met.
The tense hostage situation seemed to be resolved swiftly after the man spoke on the telephone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who then recorded a short video, apparently meeting one of the man’s demands.
Photo: Reuters
Three hostages were quickly released, followed by the rest about an hour later.
Footage published by Ukrainian officials showed police escorting people as armed special forces stood over a man lying face down near the bus with his hands behind his back.
The hostage-taker had earlier fired shots and thrown an explosive package into the street in the center of Lutsk.
The man initially made contact with police identifying himself as Maksym Plokhoy, a pseudonym that translates to “Bad Maxim,” police said.
He was identified as Maksym Kryvosh, 44, who had previously spent about 10 years in prison for various offenses.
An account which was later suspended by Twitter had posts under Kryvosh’s name claiming that he was armed, including with bombs, and demanding top Ukrainian personalities convey anti-establishment messages on social media.
Zelensky apparently carried out one of the demands posted on the account when he posted a video on social media calling on people to watch the 2005 documentary Earthlings.
Narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, the movie chronicles the harsh treatment of animals at the hands of humans.
Zelensky spoke with Kryvosh by telephone, Ukrainian Presidential Office Deputy Head Kyrylo Tymoshenko told a news conference in Lutsk.
“He [Zelensky] had a telephone conversation, speaking with him for 15 minutes, he convinced him to release three hostages,” Tymoshenko said.
Zelensky later deleted the short video.
“Today loved ones can hug everybody who languished all day on the bus with a gun pointed at them,” Zelensky wrote on social media after the crisis was over.
“We did not lose a single person,” added the president, a TV comedian before his election victory last year.
Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov said that Kryvosh came out of the bus following the negotiations.
“He really had a functioning pistol, an automatic rifle, he really had a grenade. There was a threat, but it’s all in the past,” Avakov said.
“A lengthy prison sentence awaits him,” he said, calling Kryvosh an “unstable man.”
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