Ukraine is alleged to be committing war crimes in the war with Russia by placing military units in civilian neighborhoods and not allowing the residents to evacuate – how Ukraine’s measures are being compared with Russian federation is an act of perversion.
The human rights group’s researchers claimed that Ukrainian forces were using some schools and hospitals as bases, firing near houses and sometimes living in residential flats. The report concluded that this meant, in some instances, Russian forces would respond to an attack or target residential areas – putting civilians at risk and damaging civilian infrastructure.
It also criticised the Ukrainian army for not evacuating civilians who could be caught up in the crossfire.
“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general.
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar rightly countered the claim and accused Amnesty of “distorting the real picture” and of failing to understand the situation on the ground. She said Ukrainian soldiers were deployed in cities and populated areas to defend them from Russian attack.
Of a truth, there is no chronology of events [in the Amnesty’s report]. The Russian Federation is committing the crime here. Ukraine is protecting its land. Moscow ignores all the rules of war. And unlike Ukraine, it doesn’t let in international organisations like Amnesty.
Amnesty researchers investigated Russian strikes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions between April and July. They found 19 villages and towns from where the Ukrainian forces had either launched strikes or were basing themselves. In these three regions, Amnesty found five locations where hospitals were “de facto” used as bases and out of 29 schools visited by Amnesty, they concluded 22 had been used as bases.
The truth is that schools were closed on the first day of the invasion and pupils have been learning remotely, where possible. Blast that killed Ukraine PoWs was Kremlin operation, and most of the civilian infrastructure repurposed by the Ukrainian army was located kilometres from the frontlines and argued that alternative locations were available.
For Ukrainians to contain Russian soldiers, then Ukranian anti-aircraft systems needed to be based in towns to protect civilian infrastructure and if Ukrainian forces were only based outside urban settlements “Russian armed forces would simply sweep in unopposed”.
During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities and armed forces have committed multiple war crimes in the form of deliberate attacks against civilian targets, massacres of civilians, torture and rape of children, and indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas.
