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VIDEO: Witness shared images from the scene: an armed man locked in a bus in Ukraine still has 10 hostages
It is still unclear how many people were on the bus when it was hijacked, or if any of them managed to escape.
Police surrounded the scene of the incident in the center of Lutsk. According to officials, the attacker is armed and has explosives. The man reportedly threw a grenade at the police but did not explode and also fired at least twice.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said there are ongoing talks with the attacker.
“We are doing everything we can to free the hostages,” the head of state told reporters.
A person who occupies a bus with 20 passengers at 9 p.m. 25 min. in local (and Lithuanian) time he called the police and presented himself to Maksymas Plochojus. He said he was armed and that the bus was mined, Deputy Interior Minister Anton Heraščenka wrote on Facebook.
Reuters / Scanpix photo / A man hijacked a bus in the center of Lutsk
Plochojus admitted that he had hijacked a bus and taken hostages on the Telegram channel, which was controlled by an attacker. He added that “the state has always been and always is the first terrorist” and also demanded that high-ranking Ukrainian officials make statements through social statements, identifying themselves as terrorists.
“The man reported that the bus was mined, that it had an automatic weapon and a large amount of explosives. Also, according to him, there is another explosive device elsewhere, which can be detonated remotely,” the Attorney General’s Office said in a statement. .
According to A. Geraščenko, the police discovered that the attacker’s real name was Maxim Krivosh and that he was a 44-year-old Ukrainian citizen born in Russia.
Krivos is said to have been sentenced to prison twice for various crimes, including theft, fraud and illegal possession of weapons and explosives. He spent a total of 10 years behind bars.
At that time, the Criminal Search Department of the Ukrainian National Police reported in its Telegram account that “the terrorist was being treated for mental health problems.”
A. Heraščenko noted that the author’s book “Philosophy of Prestupnika” (“Philosophy of the Criminal”) that he presented to M. Plochojus was found on the Internet, which tells of his experience in prisons and his approach to life.
“They corrected me for 15 years, but they did not correct me, on the contrary, I became even more who I am,” quoted an excerpt from that book.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov went to Lutsk, 400 km west of the capital Kiev.
Ukrainian media reported that there were regular shots fired at the scene of the incident, in the central Theater Square. It is still unclear if anyone was injured in this incident.
Reports say Krivos tried to contact journalists via hostages and their phones, demanding to be informed of their demands and to send more reporters to the scene.
Zelensky said earlier Tuesday that he was surprised by the situation.
“I personally control the course of events,” said the head of state.
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