An armed man carrying explosives fired on the police on Tuesday and took about 20 passengers of a bus hostage in Lutsk, a city in western Ukraine, police said. . "A man took control of a bus with about 20 passengers on board in central Lutsk, he has explosives and weapons," regional police said on Facebook. In a statement, the Ukrainian national police specified that "two shots were fired in the direction of the police" and that "the assailant threw from the bus a grenade which fortunately did not explode". The man also said to have concealed "in another place an explosive device which could be triggered remotely", affirmed the Ukrainian public prosecutor's office on its website.
Unknown claims
The center of Lutsk, a city of just over 200,000 inhabitants located 400 kilometers west of the capital Kiev, has been closed to traffic, Ukraine's interior ministry said. Images broadcast by local media show a stationary blue and white minibus, two of its windows damaged and the passenger curtains closed. Heavily armed police were deployed around the scene, as well as an armored vehicle. The hostage taker called the police and introduced himself as Maxim Plokhoï, Deputy Interior Minister Anton Guerashchenko said on Facebook, without specifying what his demands or his motive would be.
"We are negotiating. We hope to settle everything by negotiation," he told AFP, referring to the man's "complex mental state". The Ukrainian national police claim to have received information according to which the individual "was undergoing psychiatric treatment". Messages posted on social networks under the name of "Maxime Plokhoï" indicate that the man is armed, in particular with explosives, and that he says he is "against the system". Ukraine's interior ministry told AFP that the accounts may have belonged to the hostage taker.
"Everything is being done to resolve the situation without there being any victims"
On Telegram, Ukrainian police released a video showing a man armed with a submachine gun, posing in front of a camera, which could show the assailant before the hostage-taking. On Facebook, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted to "disturbing news from Lutsk". "Everything is being done to resolve the situation without there being any casualties," he said while the Minister of the Interior, Arsen Avakov, left urgently for Lutsk.
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, faces the proliferation of illegally held weapons, a problem that has been exacerbated since the outbreak of a 2014 war against pro-Russian separatists in its eastern territory. In 2017, police freed 11 hostages held by a gunman at a post office in the city of Kharkiv.