Amnesty Ukraine’s chief resigns over report on human rights

• The head of Amnesty International’s Ukraine office has resigned.
• Oksana Pokalchuk accused the rights group of parroting Kremlin propaganda in a report critical of Ukraine’s military response to Russia’s incursion.
• She said she warned Amnesty’s leadership that the report was one-sided and neglected the Ukrainian stance.

The chief of Amnesty International’s Ukraine office resigned, accusing the rights group of parroting Kremlin propaganda in a report critical of Ukraine’s military response to Russia’s incursion.

The report from Amnesty said the military hurt people by building camps in schools and hospitals and launching attacks from populated areas causing worry in Ukraine.

Amnesty’s Oksana Pokalchuk announced her resignation on social media late Friday. “If you don’t live in a country invaded by occupiers who are tearing it to pieces, you probably don’t understand what it’s like to condemn an army of defenders,”she said.

“And there are no words in any language that can convey this to someone who has not experienced this pain.”

Pokalchuk said she warned Amnesty’s leadership that the report was one-sided and neglected the Ukrainian stance.

Amnesty says it contacted defence officials in Kyiv on July 29, but got no answer by publication. Pokalchuk said this wasn’t nearly enough notice.

“As a result, the organisation unintentionally put out a statement that sounded like support for Russian narratives. Striving to protect civilians, this research instead became a tool of Russian propaganda.”

Amnesty recorded occurrences in 19 towns and villages in Kharkiv, Donbas, and Mykolaiv.

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Amnesty secretary-general Agnes Callamard said, “We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,“

“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister called the claims “unfair” and the defence minister called the report a “perversion.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky stated the rights group wanted to “amnesty the terrorist state“

“If someone makes a report in which the victim and the aggressor are supposedly equal in some way, if some data about the victim is analysed, and the aggressor’s actions at the same time are ignored, then this cannot be tolerated,” he stated.

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