Amnesty International said it “deeply regrets the anguish and outrage” it caused after it claimed Ukrainian forces were violating international law by exposing civilians to Russian fire. The rights group said “we stand by our findings fully” but stressed, “nothing we have documented that Ukrainian forces are doing in any way justifies Russian violations.” Amnesty sparked outrage in Ukraine by publishing a report on Thursday accusing the military of putting civilians at risk by setting up bases in schools and hospitals and launching counterattacks from densely populated areas. The head of Amnesty’s Ukraine office, Oksana Pokalchuk, resigned in protest, accusing the rights organization of parroting Kremlin propaganda. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the group tried to “shift the blame from the attacker to the victim”. Amnesty’s report listed incidents in which Ukrainian forces appeared to have put civilians at risk in 19 towns and villages in Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions. In its statement on Sunday, the rights group refused to back down on that assessment. “[Amnesty] They found cases where Ukrainian forces had been located right next to where civilians were living, potentially putting them at risk from incoming Russian fire,” it said. “We made this assessment based on the rules of international humanitarian law, which require all parties to a conflict to avoid locating, to the maximum extent possible, military targets in or near populated areas.” However, Amnesty acknowledged the scale of the backlash its report had provoked. “Amnesty International deeply regrets the distress and outrage our press release has caused regarding the war tactics of the Ukrainian military,” it said. Since Russia invaded in February, Amnesty said it has interviewed hundreds of Ukrainian victims “whose stories illuminate the brutal reality of Russia’s aggressive war”. “We have challenged the world to show solidarity with the Ukrainians through concrete action, and we will continue to do so.” Former head of Amnesty Ukraine, Pokalchuk, spoke to Al Jazeera about war crimes in July. “Amnesty International has investigated and documented alleged war crime abuses by Russia and Russian-backed forces, as well as the Ukrainian armed forces,” it noted at the time.
