Ukraine's leader reveals details of talks with hostage-taker

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — An armed man who took more than a dozen hostages on a long-distance bus in Ukraine’s western city of Lutsk on Tuesday fulfilled the agreement he had reached with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and released them shortly after Zelenskiy urged Ukrainians to watch an animal rights documentary, the president said Wednesday.

Zelenskiy spoke to the hostage-taker for several minutes on Tuesday evening, the president's office said.

“We had information about an injured (hostage), and I asked him to release the injured (hostage), a pregnant woman and a child. He said the injured hostage doesn't exist, it was a bluff. So we agreed that he will let three people go and after that I will record a video (message)," Zelenskiy said in a statement on the 12-hour-long hostage drama.

The assailant, identified by police as Maksim Krivosh, a 44-year-old Ukrainian born in Russia, seized the bus with 13 people on Tuesday morning, prompting a standoff with police in Lutsk, 400 kilometers (250 miles) west of the capital Kyiv.

At one point, the assailant threw explosives out of a window but no one was hurt. He also fired several shots at a police drone.

One of his demands was that Zelenskiy post a video message on the president's Facebook page urging Ukrainians to watch “Earthlings,” a 2005 American documentary exposing humanity’s cruel exploitation of animals.

A video of Zelenskiy saying: “Movie 'Earthlings', 2005. Everybody should watch" appeared on his Facebook page shortly after the first three hostages were reported to be released.

Zelenskiy said Krivosh promised to release the others half an hour after the video was posted. “So it happened: In 30-40 minutes he released the hostages,” the president said.

The video was later deleted from his Facebook...