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Ukrainian forces endanger civilians: amnesty

#Ukrainian #forces #endanger #civilians #amnesty

Ukrainian forces are violating international law and endangering civilians by setting up bases in residential areas, including schools and hospitals, Amnesty International said on Thursday, drawing an angry reaction from Kyiv.

Kyiv said the human rights group was drawing a “false equation” between the actions of invading Russian forces and Ukrainians defending their homeland.

Amnesty tried to “amnesty the terrorist state and shift responsibility from the attacker to the victim,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address later on Thursday.

“There is no condition, even hypothetical, under which a Russian attack on Ukraine would be justified. Aggression against our state is unprovoked, invasive and terroristic.

“If someone files a complaint that claims victims and attackers have equal rights, if some data about the victim is analyzed and at the same time the actions of the attacker are ignored, then this cannot be tolerated,” he added.

In its report, Amnesty said the tactics “in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks” and that some Russian “war crimes,” including in the city of Kharkiv, were unrelated.

But it listed incidents in which Ukrainian forces appeared to have put civilians in danger in 19 towns and villages in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolayiv regions.

“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces endangering civilians and violating the laws of war when operating in populated areas,” Amnesty Secretary-General Agnes Callamard said.

“The defensive position does not absolve the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”

Residential areas where Ukrainian soldiers are stationed are miles from front lines and “viable alternatives” are available that do not endanger civilians, the report said.

But it said the soldiers failed to urge civilians to evacuate the areas even as they launched strikes against Russian forces, which exposed them to retaliatory fire.

Amnesty researchers observed Ukrainian forces using hospitals as “de facto military bases” in five locations and 22 schools.

Although the schools were closed during the conflict, they were in civilian residential areas.

“We have no say in what the military does, but we pay the price,” the report quoted a resident as saying.

The Ukrainian government has strongly opposed the report, with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba branding the allegations “unfair”.

“This behavior by Amnesty International is not about finding the truth and reporting it to the world, it is about creating a false equation – between the perpetrator and the victim, between the country that has hundreds and thousands of civilians, Cities, territories and… a country desperately defending itself,” he said.

Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov called the report a “perversion” as he said it questions the right of Ukrainians to defend their country.

Senior Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak insisted that Ukrainian forces take all measures to move civilians to safer areas and suggested Amnesty was complicit in spreading Kremlin disinformation.

“The only thing that poses a threat to Ukrainians is the (Russian) army of executioners and rapists coming to (Ukraine) to commit genocide,” he tweeted.

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#Ukrainian #forces #endanger #civilians #amnesty

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