Ukraine hostage situation ends with detention of assailant

Ukrainian police have secured the release of all the remaining hostages who were seized on a bus in western Ukraine, and detained the hostage taker.

The hostage-taker surrendered to police and was detained late on Tuesday.

"The hostages have been released," a police statement said. "A man who took hostages in Lutsk today and held them on a bus has been detained."

Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov who was in the region to coordinate a resolution to the crisis, shared a video of hostages being released on his official Twitter account and wrote "All". 

What happened?

Police initially said there were 20 people on the bus, but Ukraine's Security Service said later in the day that the assailant was holding about 10 hostages after releasing three others.

Officials didn't explain the discrepancy, and it was unclear how many people initially had been on the bus and whether any escaped.

Following the talks with the first deputy chief of national police, Yevhen Koval, the man released three of the hostages, including a pregnant woman. Koval also delivered water to the hostages.

The security services surrounded the minibus after two shots were fired from it towards law enforcement, police said.

"The attacker threw a grenade from the bus, which, fortunately, did not detonate," a statement said, adding that the attacker was believed to have undergone psychiatric treatment.

Photos published on social media showed a small bus parked in the middle of an empty street. 

Two windows of the bus were smashed and other windows were covered with curtains.

TV footage showed empty streets cordoned off by people in military uniform, police cars and an armoured personnel carrier.

Law enforcement had cordoned off the centre of Lutsk, a town in eastern Ukraine, some 400 kilometres from the capital Kiev and advised residents not to leave their homes or places of work.

Talks with assailant

Earlier on Tuesday, the hostage-taker made contact with the police and identified himself as Maksym Plokhoy, deputy interior minister Anton Gerashchenko said. 

Later, police identified the man as 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh, born in Russia.

In posts on social media, he demanded that senior Ukrainian officials publish statements saying that they were terrorists. He also threatened to detonate another bomb in a crowded place.

Gerashchenko said Kryvosh had been convicted twice and spent about 10 years in prison.

Possible manifesto

Gerashchenko said there is a book online, signed by a Plokhoy and titled "Philosophy of a criminal," describing a man's experience in prison.

"For 15 years they've been correcting me, but I haven't been corrected, on the contrary — I've become even more who I am," one extract from the book said, according to Gerashchenko.