Comment The head of Amnesty International in Ukraine said she quit her job after the human rights group issued a report critical of Ukraine’s military, sparking a backlash among Ukrainian officials who said it unfairly blamed the victim of Russia’s war. Oksana Pokalchuk, who had led the organization’s efforts in Ukraine, said in a Facebook post announcing her resignation that it was “another loss the war has cost me.” She said that while she was proud of the work Amnesty International was doing to highlight Russian war crimes, the report issued last week — which claimed that “Ukrainian combat tactics put civilians at risk” — became a point of conflict between staff in the Ukrainian office and the largest organization. Pokalchuk said the agency’s officials in Ukraine pressed Amnesty International to allow the Ukrainian defense ministry to respond to the report’s findings before its publication, but that the organization gave Ukrainian officials “very little time to respond.” “As a result of this, albeit reluctantly, the organization produced material that appeared to support Russian narratives,” he said. “By trying to protect civilians, this study has become a tool of Russian propaganda.” What are war crimes and is Russia committing them in Ukraine? Amnesty International had said that “Ukrainian forces have put civilians at risk by setting up bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including schools and hospitals.” The organization said it “found evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes through populated residential areas, as well as being based in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in the regions.” The report also said the violations “in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks.” “Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian army from respecting international humanitarian law,” said Anies Kalamar, Amnesty International’s secretary-general, in a statement accompanying the report. Callamard has previously said Russia is “violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and challenging the global security architecture”, calling the invasion “the worst such disaster in recent European history”. The report provoked strong reactions from Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in remarks on Saturday night, criticized the “very eloquent silence” of Amnesty International on the alleged Russian attacks on a nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Zelensky said it “once again indicates the manipulative selectivity of this organization.” Responding to Pokalchuk’s resignation, Callamard praised her “significant achievements in human rights,” adding: “We are sorry to hear that she is leaving the organization, but we respect her decision and wish her well.” The organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pokalchuk’s allegations. Callamard tweeted on Friday in response to the criticism, calling out “Ukrainian and Russian social media mobs and trolls” for attacking Amnesty’s investigations. “This is called war propaganda, disinformation, disinformation,” he wrote, saying the criticism would not “damage our impartiality” or “change the facts.” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba responded, taking issue with the “mobs and trolls” comment and saying the report “distorts reality, creates a false moral equivalence between the aggressor and the victim, and reinforces Russia’s disinformation efforts.” On Thursday, after the report was issued, Zelensky said Amnesty International was trying to “amnestise the terrorist state and shift responsibility from the aggressor to the victim”. Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that “people’s lives are the priority for Ukraine, so we are evacuating residents of front-line cities.” Ukrainian regional and federal officials pushed throughout the war to evacuate civilians from cities where heavy fighting was taking place or expected. Podolyak said Russia is trying to discredit the Ukrainian military in the Western public. “It is a shame,” he wrote, that an organization like Amnesty International is “participating in this disinformation and propaganda campaign.”
