The international human rights organization Amnesty International (AI) wants the process of drafting its report, in which the Ukrainian military was accused of violating the laws of war, to be carefully vetted by independent experts. As reported on Friday, August 12, in AI, the corresponding process is currently “initiated at the international level”.

This includes the verification of the processes and decisions that preceded the publication of the communiqué, the research carried out, the process of preparing the material, as well as the legal and political analysis of the report. In addition, it is important to study the power decisions within the team and the dynamics at the heart of its organizational culture, according to Amnesty International.

“We want to understand what exactly went wrong”

“We want to understand exactly what went wrong and why, in order to learn and improve our human rights work,” says AI. The organization regrets that the press release about the study was made public without sufficient context. “He did not pay due attention to Russian aggression in violation of international law and the numerous war crimes committed by the Russian military and documented by Amnesty International,” the human rights activists say.

“The findings were not communicated with the delicacy and precision expected of Amnesty. This also applies to subsequent communication and the International Secretariat’s response to public criticism,” AI said. “We condemn the instrumentalization of the press release by the Russian authorities,” they added.

Negative reaction to the report

Amnesty International’s Ukraine report was published on 4 August. He stated that the Ukrainian Armed Forces, violating humanitarian law and the laws of war, are establishing bases in residential areas, including schools and hospitals, putting the civilian population at risk. At the same time, the organization noted that such a practice “in no way justifies indiscriminate Russian attacks”.

The publication of Amnesty caused an extremely negative reaction in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused the organization of “immoral selectivity”. The Ukrainian Center for Strategic Communications said the report’s authors used the testimonies of people who ended up in prisons or filtering camps in the Occupied Territories.

Amnesty’s Ukrainian office said it did not participate in the preparation of the report, its boss Oksana Pokalchuk resigned in protest. Amnesty International later said it deplored the anguish and anger caused by the publication of the report, but did not retract its findings and conclusions.