(Kyiv) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday evening accused Amnesty International of “attempting to amnesty the terrorist state” of Russia, after the NGO accused Kyiv of endangering civilians in the context of the war with Moscow.
Posted at 5:23 p.m.
Amnesty International “transfers responsibility from the aggressor to the victim”, he added. Earlier in the day, the head of Ukrainian diplomacy, Dmytro Kouleba, said he was “outraged” by the “unfair” accusations of the NGO.
In a report released Thursday after a four-month investigation, the NGO accused the Ukrainian military of establishing military bases in schools and hospitals and launching attacks from populated areas, a tactic it said violates the international humanitarian law.
“The aggression against our state is unjustified, invasive and terrorist. If someone writes a report in which the victim and the aggressor are in some way put on an equal footing, if certain data on the victim is analyzed and the actions of the aggressor are ignored, that does not can be tolerated,” Mr. Zelensky added in his daily video statement.
Mr. Kouleba for his part accused Amnesty International of “creating a false balance between the oppressor and the victim, between the country which is destroying hundreds and thousands of civilians, cities, territories and the country which is desperately defending itself”. .
“Stop creating this false reality, where everyone is a little guilty of something and start systematically reporting the truth about what Russia really stands for today,” he added.
Amnesty International, however, in its report, insisted that Ukrainian tactics do not “in any way justify the indiscriminate Russian attacks” that have hit civilian populations.