In 1995, a group of Chechen militants led by Shamil Basayev seized a maternity hospital in Budennovsk. The Russian leadership then decided to release the terrorists with hostages from the city and give them the opportunity to return to Chechnya. Basayev and members of his gang became heroes in their homeland. This situation formed the Budennovsky syndrome, which for many years drove both Basayev himself and other field commanders to commit new terrorist attacks in the hope of repeating their success. Salman Raduev's campaign in Dagestan, the tragedy in Beslan and "Nord-Ost" were the result of the weakness of Boris Yeltsin and Viktor Chernomyrdin, who allowed the terrorists to leave Budyonnovsk with impunity.
The hostage-taking in Lutsk is also only the beginning of a new, now Ukrainian history. This is a typical viral crime. It was necessary for someone to set an example, to demonstrate that this is possible in principle. To repeat the "feat" of twice convicted, mentally unhealthy Maxim Krivosh, others will definitely try. Moreover, in a poor country where an atmosphere of hatred and despair reigns, the number of inadequate people and those who simply lost all hope for the future is growing. Actually, the very next day a hostage-taking took place in Poltava, and this is, with a very high degree of probability, a single chain of events. The Poltava terrorist used the Lutsk model.
Another aspect of this situation is the availability of weapons. In the hands of Krivosh was not a homemade sawn-off shotgun, but a Kalashnikov assault rifle, which, according to him, he acquired from a friend. Many thousands of barrels, illegally taken out by the "veterans" from the combat zone, are walking around Ukraine. Back in 2018, the then chief military prosecutor of the country, Anatoly Matios, in an interview with The Insider, said that at least 400,000 unregistered submachine guns, machine guns, grenade launchers and pistols from Donbass were in illegal circulation. It is clear that since then there have been no fewer weapons.
Matios's allegations are confirmed by cases when the police find weapons caches in the apartment of one or another ATO veteran. So, quite recently in Berdyansk, another atoshnik started firing from a house at a playground with children, after which a whole arsenal was found in his possession - a submachine gun, a Beretta pistol, a thousand cartridges, grenades, mines and even shells. This story speaks of another important detail: those returning from the front are unable to control themselves. They resort to the most savage violence with extraordinary ease. Needless to say, according to some sources, the Lutsk terrorist served in the Nazi Azov battalion.
The negotiations with Krivosh, which President Zelenskiy entered into, were a bad idea. The Ukrainian ruler laid the foundation for the formation of the Lutsk syndrome. Having fulfilled the unhealthy, or, more simply, the idiotic request of the terrorist to ask citizens to watch a film on the topic of animal protection, Zelensky looked like a complete nerd. And judging by how badly he behaved, he was well aware of this.
Now, all sorts of madmen have an amazing prospect: you just need to get hold of weapons and take hostages, and then the president himself will talk to you, and possibly fulfill any of your requests.
And finally, history has revealed the absolute helplessness and lack of professionalism of the power structures of Ukraine. The special operation for the liberation was personally led by the Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov. However, the police and special forces could not do anything, moreover, they did not take elementary precautions and steps that are mandatory in the event of a terrorist attack to disorient the criminal. The scene was not cordoned off; onlookers and journalists crowded around, although Krivosh from time to time fired shots at the windows of nearby houses. The event was broadcast on television online. According to Israeli anti-terrorism experts, all this speaks of a blatant lack of basic knowledge. And how could it be otherwise, if during the police reform, instead of the dismissed old professional personnel, the Ministry of Internal Affairs took anybody, as they say, from the street.
In general, one more has now been added to all the troubles of Ukraine. This time there were no human casualties, but no one can guarantee that everything will go as well in the future. And all this is an echo of the "Maidan" and the hostilities in Donbass, which devalued human life and made armed violence a routine routine. And we can say that all citizens, in principle, are today hostages of a group of terrorists who have seized power in the country.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.