The man who took the bus passengers hostage in the Ukrainian Lutsk was detained.
“Employees of the Special Operations Center“ A ”of the SBU, together with the National Police, released 13 hostages in Lutsk and detained an armed terrorist who seized the Berestechko-Krasnilovka regular bus with passengers in the city center,” the Security Service of Ukraine said in its Telegram channel.
As can be seen from the recording of the assault, an explosion occurred near the bus with the hostages, after which people were released from it. Also, doctors and police entered the bus.
The reports on the release of the hostages were confirmed by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“I greet everyone who fought all day for the liberation of people in Lutsk and, in fact, for their lives ... We did not lose anyone,” he wrote on the Telegram channel.
On the fact of the incident, the security service of Ukraine opened criminal proceedings under Part 1 of Art. 258 ("Terrorist act") of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
Hostage bus
The seizure of the bus with hostages in Lutsk became known on the morning of July 21.
“There was a message on line 102 that in the center of Lutsk a man had seized a bus with hostages, he had explosives and weapons with him,” the press service of the local police reported immediately after the incident.
Law enforcement agencies introduced the Hostage plan and closed off the city center.
The police said that there were about 20 people on the bus.
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on his Facebook page right after the incident that he kept the course of events under his personal control.
Later, on his social network, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the country Anton Gerashchenko said that the attacker called the police and introduced himself as Maxim Plokhoi. He added that there is a book on the Internet, authored by the said person, entitled "The Philosophy of the Criminal", describing the author's stay in places of detention and his views on life.
Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko said on the air of the 112 Ukraine TV channel that the man threw a grenade from the bus, but it did not explode.
“The man who calls himself Maxim Bad, we think this is a pseudonym, threw a grenade out of the bus that resembles an F1. But this grenade didn’t explode because its pin was not pulled. We think that in this way he wanted to show that he has a military weapon and that he is dangerous, ”the official said.
According to Ukrainian media, the offender said that there were "many people in the cabin, there are pregnant women and children."
The media also wrote that the attacker was being treated by a psychiatrist, but the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Arsen Avakov denied this data.
“You spread the information that this comrade was being treated in a mental hospital - this is false information,” he said during a briefing in Lutsk.
Later, Anton Gerashchenko said that the suspect in the hostage-taking is a citizen of Ukraine, Maxim Stepanovich Krivosh, born in 1975, a native of the village of Gai, Orenburg region, who had previously been convicted twice.
After a while, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that negotiations were underway with the one who had seized the bus. He did not disclose the details of the conversation.
In turn, Gerashchenko said that the attacker, as a result of negotiations, allowed the police to hand over packages of water to the hostages.
“The first deputy head of the National Police, Yevhen Koval, handed the water to the hostages,” Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook.
Later, Arsen Avakov said that Koval was able to get three hostages out of the bus.
Zelensky's video message
During the incident, the attacker, via Twitter and Telegram, demanded that the heads of courts, ministries, prosecutors, parliament, churches - a total of more than 20 people - post statements on YouTube that they are terrorists in law. He demanded from Vladimir Zelensky to publish a separate video message.
- © @ zelenskiy95
- © @ zelenskiy95
After a while, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a video message on Facebook, recorded at the request of the attacker.
“Everyone should watch the 2005 film Earthlings,” he said on the recording.
Immediately after the release of the hostages and the arrest of the attacker, the message was removed from the page of the Ukrainian leader.
A veteran of the foreign intelligence service, retired colonel Lev Korolkov, in a conversation with RT, called Zelensky's decision to post a video message at the request of a man “incomprehensible”.
“Of course, you cannot follow the lead of the terrorists, this is a generally accepted axiom. Because more and more will be required further, ”he noted.
The expert suggested that they tried to calm down the attacker with a video message from the country's leader.
“In these cases, there is a technology in which everything is blocked and negotiations begin. They call doctors, psychologists-negotiators, who in each case proceed from the realities that exist at the moment: where he was treated, from what, what drugs were used, find out if there really is explosives. For example, Zelensky's actions are incomprehensible to me: neither from a professional point of view, nor from the point of view of existing technologies, ”he said.