In a statement posted Friday night on Facebook, Oksana Pokalchuk accused her former employer of ignoring the realities of wartime Ukraine and the concerns of local staff members who pushed for the report to be re-edited.
The report, released on Thursday, drew angry denunciations from top Ukrainian officials and criticism from Western diplomats, who accused the authors of making vague claims that appeared to equate the Ukrainian military’s defensive actions with the tactics of Russian invaders.
“It is painful to admit, but I and the leadership of Amnesty International have a difference of opinion,” Pokalchuk wrote. “I believe that any work done for the good of society should take into account the local context and think about the consequences.”
Russia has repeatedly justified attacks on civilian areas by claiming that Ukrainian fighters had set up firing positions at the targeted locations.
Pokalchuk said her office asked the agency’s leadership to give Ukraine’s defense ministry sufficient time to respond to the report’s findings, and argued that failure to do so would further the Kremlin’s disinformation and propaganda efforts.
“I am convinced that our investigations must be thorough, taking into account the people whose lives often directly depend on the words and actions of international organizations,” she said.
In a press release accompanying the release of the report, Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said the organization “has documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when operating in populated areas.
“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian army from respecting international humanitarian law,” he said on Thursday.
Russian state media cited the report to support Moscow’s claim that Russia has only launched strikes on military targets during the war. The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman cited Amnesty International’s allegations as evidence that Ukraine is using civilians as human shields.
Many Western scholars of international and military law took to social media to reject the human shield claim. They said the report contained poor wording that muddied legal distinctions and ignored the conditions of combat in Ukraine.
United Nations war crimes investigator Mark Garlasko, in a personal Twitter account, accused Amnesty International of “getting the law wrong” and said Ukraine was taking steps to protect civilians, including helping them relocate.
Ukrainian authorities at the national and regional levels have repeatedly urged residents of frontline areas to leave, although tens of thousands of people who fled their homes after Russia’s invasion have returned after running out of support or feeling unwelcome.
Ukrainian leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country’s foreign and defense ministers, strongly condemned the report, which they said failed to provide context for Russia’s shelling of residential areas and documented attacks on civilians.
Kalamar, Amnesty’s secretary general, posted a tweet on Friday that defended the organization’s work and took aim at its critics.
“Ukrainian and Russian mobs and social media trolls: all of them are attacking Amnesty’s investigations today. This is called war propaganda, disinformation, disinformation. This will not affect our impartiality and will not change the facts,” he wrote.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba issued an angry response to Kalamar, accusing her organization of “false neutrality” and playing into the hands of the Kremlin.
“Obviously, Amnesty’s secretary-general calls me a ‘mob’ and a ‘troll’, but that won’t stop me from saying that her report distorts reality, creates a false moral equivalence between attacker and victim and reinforces her disinformation campaign. of Russia. This is false ‘neutrality’, not the truth,” Kuleba wrote on Twitter.