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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday defended his resolution to agree to a hostage-taker’s weird demand that he post a movie suggestion to end a 12-hour stand-off.
Zelensky described how he negotiated personally on Tuesday night with a gunman who was holding 13 hostages on a bus in Lutsk, round 400 kilometres (250 miles) west of capital Kiev.
The tense stand-off ended after the president agreed to post a video of himself recommending a 2005 US documentary narrated by actor Joaquin Phoenix referred to as “Earthlings”, which condemns people’ mistreatment of animals.
“We have a result — everyone is alive. We are not fighting for (approval) ratings — we are fighting for life,” Zelensky stated in a press release, after some criticised him for giving in to the gunman’s calls for.
The SBU safety service stated all of the bus passengers had been launched unhurt. The hostage-taker had earlier fired photographs and thrown an explosive package deal.
Zelensky stated he agreed in a phone-call with the person, recognized as 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh, that “he would release three people, and after that I would record a video.”
– ‘Unstable’ –
The armed man complied and freed three hostages: a person, a pregnant lady and a toddler.
In response, the president posted a video message on Facebook urging individuals to watch the documentary.
Kryvosh agreed to launch all his captives half an hour later, Zelensky stated.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov stated Kryvosh, who was armed with a pistol, a rifle and a hand grenade, got here out of the bus following the negotiations.
Footage revealed by Ukrainian officers confirmed police escorting hostages away whereas armed particular forces detained Kryvosh, mendacity face-down on the pavement.
The SBU safety service classed the incident as an “act of terror” and “hostage-taking” and Kryvosh faces up to 15 years in jail.
After the crisis ended, Zelensky deleted the quick video he had posted.
“Today loved ones can hug everybody who languished all day on the bus with a gun pointed at them,” he wrote on Facebook.
“We did not lose a single person,” added the president, who was a tv comic earlier than his 2019 election win.
The hostage-taker is at present in a short lived detention centre, police reported.
Kryvosh had beforehand spent round 10 years in jail on fees together with fraud and unlawful dealing with of weapons. Interior minister Avakov described him as “unstable.”
Posts in a Twitter account in Kryvosh’s title, later suspended, claimed he had bombs and requested prime Ukrainian celebrities to post anti-establishment messages on social media.
The safety service stated on Wednesday that it had detained a number of suspected accomplices.
The head of the Lutsk department of the SBU, Pavlo Danyukov, stated at a briefing that the hostages had been in passable situation and had not suffered any bodily violence throughout the stand-off.
– ‘This is a mistake’ –
The US Embassy in Ukraine tweeted a message of reward, saying: “We join the people of Ukraine in celebrating the safe release of the hostages… and commend Ukrainian authorities’ success in securing their release.”
Some Ukrainians criticised Zelensky for his concession to the hostage-taker, nonetheless.
Many likened the incident to an episode of the favored British tv collection “Black Mirror” the place the prime minister fulfils the grotesque calls for of a kidnapper holding a member of the royal household.
Natalia Delgyado, a Kiev-based Facebook consumer, questioned “whether Zelensky would have fulfilled the terrorist’s demands if he had demanded public sex with a pig like in the plot of the Black Mirror episode”.
“This is a mistake. We should not negotiate with terrorists,” Kiev-based lawyer Igor Pashnev wrote on Facebook.
But one other Facebook consumer, Eduard Runin, from Kharkiv, praised Zelensky for selecting the choice of “fulfilling the demands of a terrorist and keeping people alive.”
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