The Ukrainian military has put civilians at risk by setting up military bases inside schools and hospitals and launching attacks from residential areas to push back the Russian invasion, Amnesty International said today.
Such tactics violate international humanitarian law, the non-governmental organization said in a statement, whose findings were denounced by Kyiv as part of “a disinformation and propaganda operation.”
“We have documented a trend by Ukrainian forces to endanger civilians and violate the laws of war by operating from residential zones,” said Amnesty International’s secretary-general Anies Kalamar.
“The fact that it is in a position of defense does not release the Ukrainian army from the obligation to respect international humanitarian law,” she added.
From April to July, Amnesty International experts investigated Russian strikes in Kharkiv (east), Donbass and Mykolayiv (southeast) regions, inspecting the affected areas and interviewing survivors, eyewitnesses and relatives of victims.
According to the mko, these investigators found evidence that Ukrainian forces were launching attacks from residential areas and had set up bases inside civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in those regions.
Most of the residential areas where soldiers were stationed were kilometers away from the front lines, Amnesty said, pointing out that other options were possible that did not put civilians at risk – such as military bases or forested areas that were nearby.
The NGO reports that, as far as it knows, the soldiers, who had settled in these residential zones, had not asked the civilians to leave.
Amnesty International claims that Ukrainian forces have set up military bases inside schools and hospitals.
On Twitter, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak assured that “people’s lives” were “Ukraine’s priority” and that the populations of cities near the front had been evacuated.
“The only thing that poses a threat to Ukrainians is the Russian army (…) coming to Ukraine to commit a genocide,” Podoliak said. “Moscow is trying to discredit the Ukrainian armed forces in the eyes of Western societies with its network of influencers. It is a shame for an organization like Amnesty to participate in this disinformation and propaganda campaign.”
“Ukraine clearly complies with all laws of war and international humanitarian law,” he insisted in a statement.
While denouncing these Ukrainian tactics, Amnesty International insists that they “in no way justify the indiscriminate Russian attacks” on the civilian population.
The NGO says it contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on July 29 about the conclusions of its investigations, but by the time it published its statement it had not received a response.
Source: AMPE
Source: Capital
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