#Ex-con armed with guns, explosives takes 20 people hostage on Ukraine bus

An ex-con armed with guns and explosives seized a small bus in northwest Ukraine on Tuesday, took about 20 people hostage and threatened to detonate a bomb during a lengthy standoff with cops, according to reports.

Police identified the suspect as 44-year-old Maksym Kryvosh, who was born in Russia, Reuters reported.

The man called police himself at 9:25 a.m. local time after commandeering the vehicle and introducing himself as Maksym Plokhoy, which translates as “Maksym the Bad One,” Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko said, according to NBC News.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said “shots were heard” and that the bus was damaged in the incident in the city of Lutsk, though no deaths or injuries have been reported. Negotiations with the man have been underway, he added.

The man said in social media that “the state has always been and always is the first terrorist” and demanded that top Ukrainian officials release statements calling themselves terrorists.

Police have cordoned off the center of the city some 250 miles from the capital Kiev, and advised residents not to leave their homes or places of work, Agence France-Presse reported.

Heavily armed officers surrounded the vehicle after two shots were fired from it toward law enforcement.

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

Gerashchenko said Kryvosh had been convicted twice and spent about 10 years behind bars for offenses including robbery, fraud and illegal arms handling.

Viktor Kroshko, head of the Volyn Oblast police, told reporters that the man’s demands were “rather vague.”

“He is generally unsatisfied with the political situation in the country,” he said, according to NBC News.

Ukraine has been fighting Russian-backed separatists since 2014 and has been struggling with a proliferation of illegal weapons. More than 13,000 people have been killed in the fighting so far.

With Post wires