Amnesty International said it “deeply regrets the distress and anger” caused after it alleged Ukrainian forces flouted international law by exposing civilians to Russian fire.
“We fully stand by our findings,” the rights group said on Sunday, but stressed that “nothing we have documented from Ukrainian forces in any way justifies the Russian violations.” .
Amnesty sparked outrage in Ukraine with the release of a report on Thursday accusing the military of endangering civilians by setting up bases in schools and hospitals and launching counterattacks from heavily populated areas.
The head of Amnesty’s office in Ukraine resigned in protest, accusing the rights organization of repeating Kremlin propaganda.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the group tried to “shift the blame from the perpetrator to the victim”.
Amnesty’s report lists cases in which Ukrainian forces appear to have exposed civilians to danger in 19 towns and villages in the Kharkiv, Donbass and Mykolaiv regions.
In its statement on Sunday, the rights group declined to back down on that assessment.
He “found instances where Ukrainian forces had set up right next to where civilians were living, potentially putting them at risk from incoming Russian fire.”
“We have made this assessment on the basis of the rules of international humanitarian law, which require all parties to a conflict to avoid locating, as far as possible, military objectives in or near densely populated areas” , did he declare.
Nevertheless, Amnesty acknowledged the magnitude of the reactions its report had triggered.
“Amnesty International deeply regrets the distress and anger that our press release on the Ukrainian army’s combat tactics has caused,” she said.
Since the invasion of Russia in February, Amnesty said it has interviewed hundreds of Ukrainian victims “whose accounts illuminate the brutal reality of Russia’s war of aggression”.
“We have challenged the world to show solidarity with Ukrainians through concrete actions, and we will continue to do so.”