Claim: The Russians have been attacking civilian targets in Ukraine.
Amnesty International October 2022 report.
This Amnesty International report from August last year deserves to be read in full.
It puts into perspective some of the reports of the Russian army attacking civilian targets that have been circulating in Western news media, that do not mention the crucial fact that the Ukrainian soldiers have been using civilian buildings such as hospitals and schools as military bases from which to launch their attacks.
It is to be noted, by the way, that Amnesty International is a highly left-biased organisation; for instance, their coverage of the Fulani Militants attacks on Christians in Nigeria fails to acknowledge that this is religious war against Christians in which the Christian tribespeople have been incredibly restrained in their responses to continual aggression, massacres, and genocidal attacks.
However, Amnesty International’s evident bias against Russia in their reporting (look at their main pages on the Russia-Ukraine war in which they concentrate mainly on news almost a year old that paints Russia in a bad light and neglect the crimes of the Ukrainians and the responsibility of the Ukrainian government for causing the war by attacking the eastern provinces since 2014), means this report is all the more valuable.
Ukrainian forces have been establishing bases and operating artillery weapons from hospitals, schools, and in residential areas. The Russians have then attacked these bases, with the result that civilians have been injured and hospitals, schools and homes destroyed.
Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February, Amnesty International said today.
Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets. The ensuing Russian strikes in populated areas have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure.
“We have documented a pattern of Ukrainian forces putting civilians at risk and violating the laws of war when they operate in populated areas,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.
“Being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.”
This last sentence is quite enlightening, in light of Western propaganda that claims constantly that Ukraine is winning the war.
Throughout these investigations, researchers found evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from within populated residential areas as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in the regions. The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab has analyzed satellite imagery to further corroborate some of these incidents.
Amnesty International says there were viable alternatives that would not endanger civilians.
Most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were kilometres away from front lines. Viable alternatives were available that would not endanger civilians – such as military bases or densely wooded areas nearby, or other structures further away from residential areas. In the cases it documented, Amnesty International is not aware that the Ukrainian military who located themselves in civilian structures in residential areas asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings – a failure to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.
Parts of the northeastern city of Kharkiv were apparently an exception, where Amnesty international could not find evidence of Ukrainian military presence in the civilian sites that the Russians bombed. Nevertheless there was evidence in 19 towns and villages that they examined, of Ukrainian military presence in civilian areas.
Between April and July, Amnesty International researchers spent several weeks investigating Russian strikes in the Kharkiv, Donbas and Mykolaiv regions. The organization inspected strike sites; interviewed survivors, witnesses and relatives of victims of attacks; and carried out remote-sensing and weapons analysis.
Throughout these investigations, researchers found evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from within populated residential areas as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in the regions. The organization’s Crisis Evidence Lab has analyzed satellite imagery to further corroborate some of these incidents.
A woman’s 50 year old son was taking food to the soldiers, who were stationed right next to their house, when the Russian attack came.
The mother of a 50-year-old man killed in a rocket attack on 10 June in a village south of Mykolaiv told Amnesty International: “The military were staying in a house next to our home and my son often took food to the soldiers. I begged him several times to stay away from there because I was afraid for his safety. That afternoon, when the strike happened, my son was in the courtyard of our home and I was in the house. He was killed on the spot. His body was ripped to shreds. Our home was partially destroyed.” Amnesty International researchers found military equipment and uniforms at the house next door.
Residents are questioning why the Ukrainians have been using residential areas to launch their attacks.
Mykola, who lives in a tower block in a neighbourhood of Lysychansk (Donbas) that was repeatedly struck by Russian attacks which killed at least one older man, told Amnesty International: “I don’t understand why our military is firing from the cities and not from the field.”
Russian cluster shrapnel (illegal under international law) damaged the house of Anna, 70, where she lives with her son and 95 year old mother. The Ukrainian forces were again operating artillery from within a residential neighbourhood.
Anna said: “Shrapnel flew through the doors. I was inside. The Ukrainian artillery was near my field… The soldiers were behind the field, behind the house… I saw them coming in and out… since the war started… My mother is… paralyzed, so I couldn’t flee.”
In Bhakmut the Ukrainian military were using a building across the street from a residential high-rise building.
On 18 May, a Russian missile struck the front of the building, partly destroying five apartments and damaging nearby buildings. Kateryna, a resident who survived the strike, said: “I didn’t understand what happened. [There were] broken windows and a lot of dust in my home… I stayed here because my mother didn’t want to leave. She has health problems.”
Amnesty International MAY have at one point been on "the left", personally, I have my doubts.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/amnesty-international-troubling-collaboration-with-uk-us-intelligence/253939/
These days they're more closely aligned with the Democratic Party, and the (left flank of the) CIA - meaning the Center-right, at best.
Prone to sectarian paralysis, and identitarian impulses though they may be..."the left" has always identified the (ongoing and) impending cause, of the war in Ukraine, as aggression by NATO and their CIA/Banderite Nazi cat's paws. I know this because I attended protests organized by more politically left-oriented groups, like ANSWER, and The Party for Socialism and Liberation, and even CODEPINK, in 2021 - long before Russia was forced to begin their Special Military Operation.
Now, at the time, I was doing everything in my power, to dissuade those groups from catering to the plans of Genocidal WEF Trillionaires, Bill Gates, and the Brandon Regime - by pushing the universal use of medically CONTRAINDICATED masks and Lethal Injections... largely to no avail.
To me it indicated a certain amount of top-down Intelligence Community/Democratic Party infiltration of "the left" and a Cult-like structure to those organizations... But at least they got the Imperial war plans against Russia and China, correct.