Despite harsh criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the human rights organization Amnesty International is sticking to its report on the Ukrainian army’s problematic tactics. A military expert is sharply critical.
The organization is “fully committed to our investigations,” Secretary General Agnes Callamard wrote in an email to the AFP news agency on Friday. “The findings are based on evidence gathered through extensive investigations.”
Callamard said the Ukrainian government’s response “risks deterring legitimate and important discussion on these issues.” In addition, the Ukrainian government did not respond to a request for comment on Amnesty’s findings.
Criticism of the report also came from politics professor Carlo Masala from the Bundeswehr University in Munich. In the stern podcast “Ukraine – the situation” he accused Amnesty of basically equating Ukraine and Russia. Indeed, in any war, war crimes would be committed by all sides. “But there is a difference between whether it happens systematically, as on the Russian side, or as a result of what is happening,” says Masala.
Ukraine would also specifically ask civilians in contested areas to leave contested areas. “That too is not sufficiently taken into account in the Amnesty report,” says Masala.
The British Ambassador to Ukraine, Melinda Simmons, also criticized the report. “The only thing that threatens (Ukrainian) civilians are rockets and guns and looting Russian troops,” Simmons tweeted.
The head of Amnesty’s Ukraine office, Oksana Pokalchuk, said on Facebook that Amnesty ignored her team’s request not to publish the report. The Ukrainian office will not translate the report into Ukrainian and will not post it on its website.
In a report published on Thursday, Amnesty International accused the Ukrainian army of unnecessarily endangering civilians with its military tactics. Ukrainian soldiers have “repeatedly operated out of residential areas,” said Janine Uhlmannsiek, Europe and Central Asia expert at Amnesty International Germany. The Ukrainian action is “a violation of international humanitarian law” that is not justified by the “Russian war of aggression, which violates international law”.
The Ukrainian President Selenskyj attacked Amnesty International as a result. The human rights organization wants to “issue an amnesty for the terrorist state (Russia) and shift the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim,” Zelenskyy said on Thursday.
