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.”
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
RSS