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What did the Lutsk hostage crisis leave behind?
Summary
A look back at the bus siege in Lutsk and the flight recorder findings on Flight PS 752 reported in the days before 27 July 2020.
What was Ukraine's public agenda on 27 July 2020? Two stories from the preceding days still framed it: the hostage-taking on a bus in Lutsk and the analysis of the black boxes from Flight PS 752.
The Lutsk bus siege
On 21 July 2020, a gunman carrying explosives seized a public bus in Lutsk, in Volyn Oblast, and took 16 people hostage, as reported at the time. The man, later identified as Maksym Kryvosh, barricaded himself and the passengers inside at Teatralna Square.
Police said they had identified him. He had expressed frustration with the Ukrainian system on social media. After hours of negotiations he surrendered, and all the hostages were freed unharmed. Shortly before the surrender, President Volodymyr Zelensky gave in to one of the gunman's demands and posted a video on Facebook urging people to watch the 2005 film Earthlings.
The PS 752 black boxes
On 24 July 2020, the French air accident investigation bureau, the BEA, was reported to have read and decrypted the damaged black boxes from Flight PS 752, which was shot down near Tehran on 8 January. According to Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the transcript confirmed that there had been unlawful interference in the operation of the aircraft.
By 27 July 2020, then, one crisis had ended without casualties, while the investigation into the downing of PS 752 had moved forward with a reading of the recorders.
