A unanimous wave of indignation and, ultimately, the resignation of the director of Amnesty International Ukraine after the publication on August 4 of a press release in which the NGO accuses the Ukrainian army of endangering civilian populations . Oksana Pokaltchouk had denounced the day before the sidelining of the Ukrainian team of the NGO in the drafting of the report and the end of inadmissibility opposed to all their objections. “This report was meant to protect Ukrainian civilians, but actually became a tool for Russian propaganda,” denounced the activist.
“A colonial attitude towards Ukraine”
His resignation, announced on August 6, comes in the context of widespread fury in Ukraine both from official bodies and on social networks. Amnesty International, expelled from Russia in April, accused the Ukrainian army of having positioned its units in residential areas, including hospitals and schools, closed since the start of the Russian invasion. “These tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, making them military targets,” said the organization.
Soon after the release of the statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Amnesty International in a video statement of “shifting the responsibility from the aggressor to the victim” and of “attempting to amnesty the terrorist state”. Ukrainian civil society also widely denounced the reaction of Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, who accused in a tweet of “Russian and Ukrainian trolls” “to attack Amnesty’s investigations” and to indulge “war propaganda and disinformation”. ” Shame on you ! », a reacted Ivan Verbytskyidirector of the Ukrainian think tank Cedos, by calling on Agnès Callamard to resign from an organization which, he claims, “demonstrates a colonial attitude towards Ukraine”.
“Not all civilians agree to be evacuated”
Deputy Defense Minister Anna Maliar responded directly to Amnesty International’s accusations: “The Ukrainian forces, with the cooperation of the military administrations and local authorities, regularly call on the populations living in the localities close to the combat zones to evacuate. Everyone has the right to be voluntarily evacuated to safer areas, but not all civilians accept this evacuation. »
Since the beginning of the war, kyiv has indeed urged the populations close to the front line to leave their homes, and in particular set up evacuation trains in the Donbass region. But nearly 200,000 civilians still live in this region, according to the Ukrainian authorities. “The more people leave the Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have time to kill,” launched Volodymyr Zelensky last week, as Russian forces continued to attempt to advance in the region.