In a report released on Thursday, Amnesty International said Ukrainian armed forces are putting civilian lives at risk by setting up bases and using weapons in residential areas, including schools and hospitals.

The investigators of the international organization spent several weeks investigating the strikes by Russian troops in the Kharkiv, Donbass and Mykolaiv regions, talking to survivors, eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims of the terrorist attacks.

Amnesty says it has found evidence of shelling by Ukrainians from residential areas, as well as the creation of military bases in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in these regions. Satellite imagery has been used to confirm some of these incidents.

Most of the residential areas where Ukrainian soldiers have settled are located kilometers from the front line, and Amnesty researchers say they had alternatives available that would not have put civilian lives at risk, such as military bases, forested areas or other structures further away. from residential areas. region

“I don’t understand why our Armed Forces fire from the cities and not from the fields,” a woman named Mykola told the investigators.

Shelling was carried out from residential quarters

In Bakhmut, several residents told them that Ukrainian troops had used a building barely 18 meters across from a multi-storey residential building. On May 18, a Russian rocket hit the house, partially destroying 5 apartments and causing damage to other nearby houses.

“We have no right to influence what the armed forces do, but we pay for it,” said a resident whose home was damaged in the attack.

Amnesty reminds that international humanitarian law requires all parties to the conflict to avoid establishing military facilities in densely populated areas.

“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces endangering the civilian population and violating the laws of war by operating in populated areas,” said Agnes Callamar, the organization’s secretary general.

However, Amnesty says that not all Russian attacks on the sites visited were directed against military targets and that Moscow’s armed forces are committing war crimes by deliberately targeting civilian areas.

PHOTO: Serhii BOBOK / AFP / Profimedia Images

Military bases in hospitals and schools

Amnesty investigators say they have witnessed hospitals being used as military bases in 5 different locations. In the two cities, dozens of Ukrainian soldiers rested, walked and ate in hospitals. In another city, soldiers were filmed shooting near a hospital.

Amnesty International reminds that the use of hospitals for military purposes is a serious violation of international law.

The organization also notes that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are regularly based in cities and villages of Donbass and Mykolaiv Oblast. Schools were temporarily closed after the start of the war, but in most cases documented by investigators, they were located near populated areas.

At 22 of the 29 schools visited by investigative organizations, they say they found either soldiers using the building or evidence that it had been used for military purposes. In at least 3 cities, Ukrainian soldiers moved to other schools after the ones where they set up their military base were bombed.

In Bakhmut, Ukrainian forces were using the university building as a base when a Russian attack hit it on May 21, killing 7 soldiers. The university is located next to a high-rise residential building that was hit, as well as other civilian buildings a few tens of meters away.

Indiscriminate Russian attacks

Many of the attacks by Russian armed forces in recent months documented by Amnesty investigators have been carried out with inherently indiscriminate weapons, including the use of internationally banned weapons such as cluster munitions and other large-area explosive weapons.

Amnesty International states that the practice of creating Ukrainian military bases in populated areas in no way justifies these Russian attacks.

“All parties to a conflict must always distinguish between military and civilian targets and take all possible precautions, including the weapon of choice, to minimize harm to the civilian population,” the organization said.

“Indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians or damage civilian targets constitute war crimes,” concluded the report released by Amnesty International.

Ukraine rejected the report prepared by Amnesty International

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, said on Thursday afternoon that he was outraged by the international organization’s unfair accusations.

“I am outraged by this Amnesty International report. I find it very unfair,” he said in a video posted on his Facebook page.

The full report can be viewed HERE.

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