What the Lutsk bus hostage crisis and the PS 752 data showed
A look back at two Ukraine-related stories in the reporting around 27 July 2020: the Lutsk hostage standoff and the PS 752 black box findings.
What was Ukraine absorbing as of 27 July 2020? Two stories dominated the preceding days: a hostage standoff in Lutsk and the decoding of the black boxes from flight PS 752.
On 21 July 2020, a gunman carrying explosives took 16 people hostage aboard a public bus in Lutsk, according to reports at the time. Background accounts name him as Maksym Kryvosh and say the bus was seized and barricaded at Teatralna Square in Volyn Oblast; that account puts the number of passengers at 13. Police said they had identified the man, who had voiced frustration with the Ukrainian system on social media.
After hours of negotiations the gunman surrendered and all hostages were freed unharmed. Shortly before the surrender, President Volodymyr Zelensky met one of the gunman's demands by posting a video on Facebook urging people to watch the 2005 film Earthlings. The crisis ended with the hostages' release and the gunman's arrest.
The PS 752 findings
Separately, on 24 July 2020, Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) had successfully read and decoded the damaged black boxes from flight PS 752, which was shot down near Tehran on 8 January. According to the ministry, the transcript confirmed that there had been unlawful interference in the aircraft's operation.
By 27 July 2020, then, the Lutsk episode had ended without casualties, while the investigation into PS 752 had moved forward with the decoded recorder data.
