Thread by @KSergatskova

Amnesty International released a report where they say that “Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians.” What is wrong with it? Thread.
amnesty.org/en/latest/news…

Briefly: The report says that UA army was «using as bases for military and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, inc. in schools and hospitals». There are few examples without mention of specific locations or details that could give a picture of what happened.

The report is based mainly on interviews with a few people whose relatives were killed or injured by Russian rockets/missiles in the residential areas. And it says that UA soldiers were situated near residential buildings, so RU targeted them.

Amnesty International somehow skips the fact that it is Russian army that fires at the residential areas in Ukraine, and that they actually breaks international law, from the beginning.

Remember the horrible Russian rocket attack on Vinnytsia? Russian propaganda explained the attack by the guess that there were military men in the Officer’s House in the city center. Dozens of peaceful citizens were killed during the attack.

Even if we imagine that the military men were really in the Officers' House in Vinnytsia, does that make them violators of international humanitarian law? Were they endangering citizens around by sitting there? Or maybe Russia committed a crime by firing at the city?

In Putin’s statement on 24 Feb., I want to remind you he proclaimed that Russia’s goals are to «demilitarise» and «denazify» Ukraine no matter what. At first, Russia destroyed a lot of UA military objects/bases. Soon, they started destroying everything, to terrorize Ukraine.

In the report, there is a part where Amnesty Int. says that UA officers were using a hospital for «resting and eating» there. Well, this sounds like an obvious crime, right? In my travels to war zones, I’ve seen many officers eating in cafes. Did they endanger citizens by that?

The report doesn’t mention what is actually happening in Ukraine, and doesn't investigate tactics of RU army that settled tanks right in the people’s yards in Kyiv oblast, Kharkiv outskirts, or Mariupol.

It doesn’t mention how Russia commits crimes against humanity in Ukraine, using weapons forbidden by international law.

And sadly, the report won’t tell you that Amnesty International doesn’t have access to the Russian war sites. Researchers simply can’t reach those territories. They are not welcomed there, unlike in Ukraine.

If NGOs like Amnesty can’t find tools to investigate crimes from the RU side, it doesn’t have a moral right to make such accusations against the side they have access to.

The report reminds me of victim blaming. It says: the UA military provokes Russia to shell at civilians by operating in the cities (while RU operates in cities, too. It’s not a battlefield war).

But it is the Russian army that shells at the Ukrainian cities and civilian objects, endangering the whole of Ukraine by its genocidal invasion.