(Kiev) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday defended his decision to have yielded the day before to the strange condition of a hostage taker by broadcasting a video in which he recommended viewing a documentary on animal exploitation.
France Media Agency
In a statement, Mr. Zelensky described the negotiations he conducted with this armed man who detained Tuesday 12 people held hostage in a bus in Lutsk, a city in western Ukraine.
PHOTO TETIANA HRISHYNA, REUTERS
Ukrainian law enforcement officers lie on the ground behind a car near a passenger bus, which was seized by an unidentified person in the city of Lutsk, Ukraine July 21, 2020. REUTERS / Tetiana Hrishyna
"We have a result: everyone is alive," said the head of state, whom some in his country criticize for having followed through on this unusual request from the madman.
"We are not fighting for ratings (of popularity), we are fighting for lives," he said.
This tense hostage-taking subsided when Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to reproduce a short video on his Facebook page in which he urged to watch "Earthlings", a documentary film by 2005 narrated by American actor Joaquin Phoenix and condemning the mistreatment of animals.
M. Zelensky explained that he got along with the hostage taker, a man of 39 identified as Maxime Krivoch , so that he "frees three people and then I record this video."
The assailant, who had previously fired and thrown a grenade in the direction of the police, effectively freed an elderly woman, a teenager and a pregnant woman in the wake of his telephone conversation with the president Ukrainian.
He then released the other hostages and was arrested by the police. After this happy outcome, Mr. Zelensky quickly deleted the video.
According to the Ukrainian security services (SBU), no hostages were injured in this hostage-taking of 11 hours, during which Mr. Krivoch had threatened to detonate a bomb. He risks up to 15 years in prison for "terrorist act" and "hostage-taking" , said the SBU.
The SBU announced on Wednesday that it had arrested several people suspected of being accomplices of the hostage taker, who had already done nearly 07 years in prison, in particular for "banditry", "fraud" and illegal possession of weapons.
"We are verifying information that (the arrested suspects) participated in this attack," SBU regional branch chief in Lutsk, Pavlo Danioukov, said during a briefing.
All the released hostages are doing well, he added, "none of them suffered violence".
However, Ukrainians criticized President Zelensky for giving in to the hostage taker, a man described as "unstable" by Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov.
Some have compared the situation to an episode of the popular television series "Black Mirror", in which a fictional British Prime Minister fulfills the grotesque conditions of a man holding a member of the royal family hostage.
" It is a mistake. We should not negotiate with terrorists, "Kiev lawyer Igor Pachnev wrote on Facebook.
Others, on the other hand, greeted the Ukrainian president, like Edouard Rounin, a Facebook user from the city of Kharkiv, who thanked him for "having fulfilled the terrorist's requests and kept people alive ".
The United States Embassy in Ukraine has also praised the handling of this incident by the Ukrainian authorities.
"We join the Ukrainian people in celebrating the safe release of hostages [...] and we commend the success of the Ukrainian authorities in securing this release," the US Embassy commented on Twitter.
