Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday defended his decision to have yielded the day before to a strange condition of a hostage taker by posting a video in which he recommended viewing a documentary on animal exploitation.
Read also: Hostage-taking on a bus in Ukraine: all passengers released
In a statement, Volodymyr Zelensky described the negotiations he conducted with the gunman who held 13 people hostage on Tuesday in a bus in Lutsk, a city in western Ukraine. " We have a result: everyone is alive, " said the Ukrainian president in particular, while some in his country criticize him for having accepted this strange request from the madman.
The tense situation eased when Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to post a video on his Facebook page recommending watching “ Earthlings, ” a 2005 documentary film narrated by American actor Joaquin Phoenix and condemning animal abuse. . Volodymyr Zelensky explained that he had come to an agreement with the hostage taker, a 44-year-old man identified as Maxime Krivoch, so that he " frees three people, and that afterwards I record this video ".
Hostages freed
After its publication, the hostage taker eventually freed the other hostages and was arrested. Volodymyr Zelensky for his part quickly deleted the video. According to the Ukrainian security services (SBU), no hostages were injured in this hostage-taking lasting several hours, during which Maxime Krivoch threatened to detonate a bomb. He faces up to 15 years in prison for " terrorist act " and " hostage-taking ", said the SBU.
Ukrainians have criticized Volodymyr Zelensky for giving in to the demand, with some likening the situation to an episode of the popular television series " Black Mirror " in which the British Prime Minister fulfills the grotesque conditions of a man holding a member of the United States hostage. Royal family. “ This is a mistake. We must not negotiate with terrorists, ”Kiev-based 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 Volodymyr Zelensky for " having fulfilled the terrorist's requests and kept people alive " .
