An internal review commissioned by Amnesty International, which was leaked to the New York Times, found that the rights group’s controversial report, which accused Ukraine of illegally endangering citizens by deploying armed forces in civilian areas, had significant flaws. Guardian.

The report, published last August, sparked widespread outrage in Ukraine, leading to an apology from Amnesty and the promise of an external review to assess what went wrong in the preparation of the report. Among those who condemned the report was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, who accused Amnesty of “shifting responsibility from the aggressor to the victim.”

An unpublished review leaked to the New York Times concluded that the report was “written in ambiguous, imprecise and, in some respects, legally questionable language.”

In particular, the report’s authors were criticized for wording that allegedly suggested that “many or most of the war’s civilian casualties resulted from Ukraine’s decision to deploy its forces near civilians” at a time when Russian forces were deliberately targeting civilians.

“This is especially true of the opening paragraphs, which could be interpreted as implying — even if this was not AI’s intention — that on a systemic or general level, Ukrainian forces were primarily or equally responsible for the civilian deaths resulting from Russian attacks “.

Immediately after publication, the first report was seized upon by Russia, including the embassy in London, to claim that the Ukrainian tactic was a “violation of international humanitarian law” at a time when Russian forces have been accused of serious war crimes.

Amnesty’s board spent months reviewing the 18-page report, sources said, amid speculation there was pressure to water down its findings.

At the heart of the dispute was Amnesty’s claim that by stationing military personnel in civilian buildings and launching attacks from civilian areas, Ukraine violated international law on the protection of civilians.

The report was evaluated by five experts, including Emanuela-Chiara Gillard of the University of Oxford; Kevin John Heller of the University of Copenhagen; Eric Talbot Jensen of Brigham Young University; Marko Milanovych from the University of Reading; and Marco Sassoli from the University of Geneva.

Experts questioned whether the authors of the first report correctly interpret international law regarding Ukraine as a victim of aggression and whether there is evidence that Ukraine puts the civilian population at risk.

The leaked report also revealed that there was considerable concern at Amnesty before publication, not least about whether the Ukrainian government was sufficiently involved.

“These caveats should have prompted more thought” before the organization issued its statement, the review added.

Oksana Pokalchuk, the former head of Amnesty’s office in Ukraine, who resigned over the report, said she believes the review should be made public, as well as an internal review of how the report was decided.

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