Ukrainian law enforcement detained an armed hostage-taker in Lutsk who demanded, among other things, that the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly endorsed a documentary about animal abuse on July 21.
After speaking for several minutes with the ex-convict, who had been holding 13 people prisoner for nearly 12 hours and threatening to “blow everything up,” Zelensky published a video online in which he urged Ukrainians to watch the documentary.
“Everybody watch the 2005 film ‘Earthlings,’” the president said in a terse statement posted on Facebook.
Immediately after the terrorist’s arrest, Zelensky deleted the post. Instead, he wrote a message on Facebook congratulating the public with the hostages’ release. He stressed: “There is no place for terrorism in any country.”
Since the dramatic hostage situation, critics of Zelensky have said he showed weakness by giving into the terrorist’s demands. They suggest that the Lutsk negotiations set a worrying precedent and could lead to Zelensky making even bigger concession under different circumstances.
But experts don’t buy it.
“In any negotiation process, we always weigh what we get and what we are ready to give for it. The price that the president paid in this case for the release of the hostages was low,” said Victor Vertsner, an Israeli army reservist holding the rank of major with experience in counterterrorism. “The documentary is pretty useful though.”
The film, narrated by the American actor Joaquin Phoenix, portrays animals suffering in agriculture and scientific research.
“It’s hard to speak about a worrying precedent here, given how utterly bizarre the demand was,” Katharine Quinn-Judge, senior analyst at International Crisis Group told the Kyiv Post. “It’s not as if Zelensky agreed to incite violence or to cede territory to Russia, or proclaim COVID‑19 a hoax. Are vegan activists across the country now going to start taking busloads of people hostage to draw attention to their cause? It’s hard to imagine.”
At the same time, it’s possible that the incident can inspire copycats, who may want to test what silly things the president can tell to the nation.
“This would indeed have awful repercussions for ordinary people, and would certainly strain Zelensky’s legitimacy,” said Quinn-Judge.
But to avoid such a scenario and mitigate the threat of violence in Ukraine, the country must redouble its efforts to reform the police, which have largely stalled, she added.
“Authorities need to keep rooting out corruption in law enforcement, and desperately need to get the illegal arms trade under control.”
The assailant, identified by police as Maksym Kryvosh, a 44-year-old Ukrainian born in Russia, hardly fits into the classic terrorist profile, Vertsner says. His motivation is unclear and does not match the ideas of any known terrorist organization.
The man’s criminal past can be one of the reasons for yesterday’s attack in Lutsk, Vertsner thinks.
“Often ex-convicts do not find self-application at large, so they want to return to the place they feel at ease,” Vertsner said.
Kryvosh had spent around 10 years in prison on convictions including fraud and the illegal handling of weapons. A book he authored under the penname Maksym Plokhoi (“Maksym the Bad” in Russian) describes his life in prison and his outlook on life.
The old maxim of never negotiating with terrorists has long been outdated, the experts say.
“As for the idea that Zelensky showed weakness — something that, say, (far-right party) National Corps is saying — I’m not sure what they would have seen as a strength,” Quinn-Judge told the Kyiv Post. “Let’s recall that Russia under (President Vladimir) Putin has a record of showing “strength” in hostage situations. They stormed the Dubrovka theater in 2002 and school No. 1 in Beslan in 2004, killing hundreds on both occasions. These events have left communities with the double trauma of being attacked by terrorists and, as they see it, by their own law enforcement.”
“I’m not saying this would have had the same outcome, but I do want to emphasize that taking the ‘never negotiate with terrorists’ approach does not necessarily strengthen the legitimacy of the state.”
Samuel Barnai, an expert on the history and politics of central and eastern Europe at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, agrees that negotiations always have to be held.
“The old approach of not negotiating with terrorists has not worked for a long time, and Israel is a clear example of this. Israel negotiated the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit for 5 years and 4 months and exchanged him for 1,027 terrorists.”
Although efforts to free the hostages in Lutsk were ultimately successful, they also featured several rocky moments.
After Kryvosh was arrested, special forces arrived on an armored personnel carrier and used a flashbang grenade.
Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko claimed that they did it to “psychologically suppress the will of the criminal.” However, the attacker was already led away when special forces arrived.
Vertsner suspects the situation occurred due to a lack of proper coordination of the security forces.
“Ukraine has a problem with the ‘three-headed snake.’ The Security Service of Ukraine in this situation should have taken the command entirely and fully coordinated the actions of all structures, including the president,” he said. “This does not mean that it should lead the President and make decisions for him, but it had to coordinate actions.”
Kryvosh is currently being held in a pretrial detention center. On July 23, a court arrested him for 60 days.
