Armed man takes bus, hostages in Ukraine
A bus with passengers who have been taken hostage is seen in the city of Lutsk, some 400 kilometers from the capital Kiev, on Tuesday.
An armed man seized a long-distance bus and took passengers hostage in northwestern Ukraine yesterday, sparking an hours-long standoff with police, Ukrainian authorities said.
About 10 people are being held hostage, Ukraine’s Security Service said in a Facebook statement. Police earlier had put the number at 20. It was still unclear how many people had been on board to start with, and whether any escaped.
Police sealed off the center of Lutsk, a city 400 kilometers west of the capital Kiev. The assailant is armed and carrying explosives, police said. They said he threw a hand grenade that failed to explode at officers and shot at them at least twice during the ongoing siege.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said negotiations with the man are underway.
“We’re doing everything to free the hostages,” Zelenskiy said.
The man called police at 9:25am after taking control of the bus and introduced himself as Maksim Plokhoy, Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said.
In a Telegram account reportedly belonging to him, he apparently admitted to seizing the bus, said “the state has always been and always is the first terrorist” and demanded top officials release statements on their social media pages calling themselves terrorists.
Gerashchenko said police have identified the man as Maksim Krivosh, a 44-year-old Ukrainian born in Russia. Krivosh had allegedly been convicted twice on a wide range of charges — robbery, fraud, illegal arms handling — and spent a total of 10 years in jail.
