The human rights organization Amnesty International has defended its controversial report on the warfare of the Ukrainian army while expressing its regret at its impact. “Amnesty International deeply regrets the pain and anger that our press release about the combat tactics of the Ukrainian military has caused,” said a statement from the organization available to the German Press Agency on Sunday. Amnesty maintains the main findings of the report.
In the report published on Thursday, Amnesty International accused the Ukrainian army of entrenching itself in residential areas, thereby unnecessarily endangering civilians. The head of Amnesty’s Ukraine branch, Oxana Pokalchuk, resigned over the report.
“With the aim of protecting civilians, this study has instead become a tool of Russian propaganda,” she accused her colleagues. Kyiv criticized that the non-governmental organization had operated a perpetrator-victim reversal by focusing on misconduct by the army of the attacked country.
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj personally criticized the report sharply. Amnesty is trying to shift responsibility from the Russian attackers to their victims.
“While we fully stand by our findings, we regret the pain caused and want to clarify a few key points,” Amnesty International said. The organization found Ukrainian violations of martial law at 19 different locations.
However, this does not justify the Russian war crimes. “Russia is solely responsible for the abuses it has committed against Ukrainian civilians,” it said. Amnesty has addressed these crimes several times in recent months.
