The NGO specifies that the action of Ukrainian forces does not, however, justify Russian tactics.
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The Ukrainian military has put civilians at risk by establishing military bases in schools and hospitals and launching attacks from populated areas to repel the Russian invasion, Amnesty International said Thursday (August 4th). Such tactics violate international humanitarian law, warns the NGO in a press release.
Between April and July, Amnesty International researchers investigated Russian strikes in the Kharkiv, Donbass and Mykolaiv regions, inspecting sites hit by strikes and interviewing survivors, witnesses and relatives of victims. According to the NGO, these researchers found evidence that Ukrainian forces were launching strikes from populated residential areas and had established bases in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in these regions.
Most of the residential areas where the soldiers were located were located miles from the front lines, Amnesty notes, pointing out that other options that would not have endangered civilians, such as military bases or densely wooded areas in proximity, were possible. The NGO indicates that to its knowledge, the soldiers who settled in these residential areas did not ask the civilians to evacuate. She claims that Ukrainian forces have established military bases in schools and hospitals.
If the NGO denounces these Ukrainian tactics, it insists on the fact that they do not “in no way justify the indiscriminate Russian attacks” that hit the civilian population. Amnesty International says it contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense about its research findings on July 29 but had not received a response as of the press release.