Head of Amnesty International’s office in UkraineOksana Pokalchuk announced her resignation after an NGO report accused the Ukrainian armed forces of endangering civilians, angering Kyiv.

“I am resigning from the Ukrainian office of Amnesty International,” Pokalchuk wrote on her Facebook page late Friday, accusing the August 4 report of unwittingly serving “Russian propaganda.”

Amnesty International said Friday it takes full responsibility for its report, which accuses the Ukrainian military of endangering civilians in its resistance to the Russian invasion by building military infrastructure in residential areas.

The publication of the report the day before outraged Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelensky has gone so far as to accuse the NGO of “trying to grant amnesty to the Russian terrorist state” by “identifying victim and aggressor in a certain way.”

“Unless you live in a country that has been invaded by conquerors who are tearing it apart, you probably don’t understand what it means to condemn an ​​army that defends its country,” added the head of Amnesty Ukraine.

He added that he tried in vain to convince the leadership of Amnesty International that the report was biased and did not take into account the point of view of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

According to Pokalchuk, Amnesty eventually “sent a request to the Defense Ministry” but “gave him very little time to respond.” “Therefore, the organization unwittingly released a report that appears to unwittingly support the Russian version. In an effort to protect civilians, this report has become a tool of Russian propaganda,” he stressed.

In an earlier Facebook post, Pokalchuk said that Amnesty ignored her group’s calls not to release the report. “Yesterday I had a naive hope that everything could be fixed and that this text would be replaced by another one. But today I realized that this will not happen, ”he added.

On Friday, Amnesty International Secretary General Anis Calamar assured that the report’s findings “are based on evidence obtained from wide-ranging investigations that are subject to the same rigorous standards and vetting process as in all of Amnesty International’s work.”

In its report, prepared after a four-month investigation, the NGO accused the Ukrainian army of setting up military bases in schools and hospitals and launching attacks from residential areas, a tactic that violates international humanitarian law.

Amnesty, however, stressed that Ukraine’s tactics in no way “justify indiscriminate Russian attacks” on civilians.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he was “outraged” by Amnesty International’s “unfair” accusations.

^{Source: APE-MEB, AFP, Reuters.}