Zelensky intervenes in bus hijacking, passengers released without injury

A lifelong criminal took hostage on July 21 a mass transit
microbus with 13 passengers in the city of Lutsk, prompting a 12-hour standoff
that concluded with his arrest and all his captives being released without
injury. The hijacking drew the personal involvement of Internal Affairs
Minister Arsen Avakov and President Zelensky, who spoke with the hijacker for
seven to ten minutes and even satisfied his key demands of recording a video
statement and making a Facebook post. The 44-year-old hijacker, identified as
Russian-born and a resident of the Rivne region, agreed to surrender himself to
authorities at about 9:40 p.m., after which Zelensky removed the materials. The
hijacking wasn’t related to the war in Donbas, law enforcement authorities
reported. Afterwards, they found in his possession a pistol, automatic rifle,
and grenades. The hijacker had been convicted of robbery, fraud, theft,
extortion and illegal use of firearms.

Avakov vowed a long prison sentence for the hijacker,
who was widely characterized as a terrorist in the media. Zelensky described
the resolution as follows, “I asked that he release an injured person, a
pregnant woman and a child. He said there aren’t any injured. That it was a
bluff. So we agreed that he will release three people and I will record a video
afterwards. After the video was released on social networks, he released all
the people after a half hour. And this was all obvious to me. These are obvious
steps to me. If we can do something without storming the bus, if we can avoid
risking the life of at least one person, then I live with these principles,
have lived that way and will live. Because we have a result. The result is
everyone is alive. We aren’t fighting for ratings. We are fighting for life.
That’s the main value to me.”

Zenon Zawada: Yet again,
Zelensky has produced a short-term success from a political situation than can
have mid-term negative consequences. This hijacking could have been handled
better with the necessary law enforcement expertise, particularly in areas such
as sniper shooting. It’s not clear whether it was available. Overall, this
situation demonstrated the essence of Zelensky’s approach to politics, which is
to find the simplest, one-off solutions to problems, in spite of their possible
long-range consequences. The approach used is similar to the prisoner exchanges
with the Russian-backed governments in Donbas, in which Zelensky offered
indirect concessions (with the simultaneous gas transit deal, and in accepting Russian-backed
fighters) in order to secure what minimum gains that were possible with the
war.

Being guided by the principle “anything to save a
human life,” which was one of his key campaign themes,
this incident confirms our view that Zelensky would have rather easily
capitulated to Russian President Putin’s demands to end the war in Donbas, if
not for Western leaders preventing him from doing so. His critics have posed
the question of, “Why not – in similar fashion – submit to the demands to the
Russian-backed fighters in Donbas, who are torturing prisoners and are also
characterized as terrorists?” And the simple answer is Zelensky would have, if
not for the West.

Nonetheless, this one-dimensional approach will
likely score Zelensky some much-needed popularity with the public, which will
view this latest move as an example of the president’s genuine concern for
people (despite being surrounded by corrupt politicians, as the theory goes).
For those members of the public who are more politically astute, they
understand that in his simplistic approach to politics, Zelensky has set the
latest dangerous political precedent. With a high enough ransom, the president
can be blackmailed.