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On the 4th of August noted human rights NGO Amnesty International released a report on the conduct of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in its conflict with the Russian Armed Forces (RAF). Its called Ukrainian Fighting Tactics Endanger Civilians. That this report proved controversial is an understatement. Most Ukrainians I follow on social media were alarmed and criticisms included some accusations of bias and even pro RAF corruption. Meanwhile the small number of Putin propagandists I've encountered were ecstatic, even gleeful.
I've read the report and it left me with some concerns. I've relied on Amnesty International's research in the past so this isn't the first report by them that I've read. My previous experience with the group's work left me a bit surprised by this report. I don't have any proof of corruption, although you could make a case that the way its writing points towards an editorial bias I didn't think there was anything that could be singled out as conclusive in that regard. Until Amnesty International's Ukraine branch made a public statement about it that is, I'll get to that statement later.
The Report
Before becoming aware of the context of this report and its publication history the word that I would've chosen for this report was sloppy. Its premise is clear, it says upfront that it is a documentation of several instances were the AFU has in Amnesty's view put Ukrainian civilians in harms way. However to support this conclusion and in my view to make this look like a consistent tactic by the AFU its supported its limited evidence with incidents that don't really fit the pattern its trying to establish.
It helpfully outlines its three key points at the top of the document.
- Military bases set up in residential areas including schools and hospitals
- Attacks launched from populated civilian areas
- Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians
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.
Not every Russian attack documented by Amnesty International followed this pattern, however. In certain other locations in which Amnesty International concluded that Russia had committed war crimes, including in some areas of the city of Kharkiv, the organization did not find evidence of Ukrainian forces located in the civilian areas unlawfully targeted by the Russian military.
This isn't the last time the report will acknowledge that RAF actions have followed the same pattern without AFU activity that is criticised in this report. Its good that there is some attempt to be open about the limitations but this raises an important issue that isn't address in the report. How does Amnesty International know that the presence of the AFU is responsible for RAF military activities if it is well documented even by Amnesty that the RAF behaves in the same manner without the AFU being present? Well there are ways to increase the likelihood of a definitive answer, direct statements from the RAF, intercepted calls and leaked battle reports would be pretty solid evidence. Anything else is ultimately assumption even if it seems perfectly logical or what you would do if you were in the position of an officer in the RAF.
Some, of the incidents documented by Amnesty that include the AFU firing on RAF positions then those same positions direct fire at the AFUpositions seem pretty convincing, but there are few such incidents documented. But there are few such cases in the report, and most of them say the AFU was operating near civilian areas not within them. The report also states that most of these strikes were on AFU units well behind the front lines which would mean very little direct military action from the AFU toward the RAF.
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.
Emphasis mine
I've bolded the last part of this paragraph because I think its rather telling. The report authors are aware that since there is in fact a war on, pragmatism has to take priority. Under the framework they've laid out here any presence of the AFU in or near a civilian population is a provocation to the RAF. Amnesty's report makes no attempt to prove this assertion in any of the cases it documents, and I for one would like to know how they came to that conclusion. To make such a statement they would have to know the complete dispositions of both AFU and RAF in the area, the balance of power between them and their strategic objectives. Since Amnesty couldn't possibly know any of this is just assumptions on its part.
Under this definition any and all attempts to defend a population centre from capture or occupation fall under the umbrella term of human shielding provided someone could find a patch of open terrain in the rough area of the fighting.
Though Amnesty needs to establish that this is the case because most of its documented incidents took place in areas that were frontline battlefield during the period April-July, and still are close to the fighting.
Survivors and witnesses of Russian strikes in the Donbas, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions told Amnesty International researchers that the Ukrainian military had been operating near their homes around the time of the strikes, exposing the areas to retaliatory fire from Russian forces. Amnesty International researchers witnessed such conduct in numerous locations.
These are all areas of fierce fighting with frontlines that have moved with offensives and counter offensives. Battles aren't easily directed and are not predictable so I'm not surprised that AFU units have gotten close to civilian areas considering there is a war for control of territory. While the survivors stories are horrible to hear, but they aren't proof of deliberate policy to bring civilians into harms way. To be blunt, what Amnesty's report is accusing the Ukrainian Army of doing is using its population as a human shield, as that is the only logical reason a military would place its military within a civilian population with no legitimate military reason to do so.
This accusation is not proving by any of the things the report brings up and is contradicted by the overwhelming number of RAF attacks on civilian targets all over Ukraine, from Kyiv to Lviv and Odessa, they have launched thousands of missiles at cities, towns and villages nowhere near the frontlines and so have made it abundantly clear that the presence of Ukrainians or even the Russian minority will not deter them from launching 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.” Another resident, a 50-year-old man, said: “There is definitely military activity in the neighbourhood. When there is outgoing fire, we hear incoming fire afterwards.” Amnesty International researchers witnessed soldiers using a residential building some 20 metres from the entrance of the underground shelter used by the residents where the older man was killed.
It would also help transparency if Amnesty dated its quotations, the report was compiled between April and July so I assume Mykola was interviewed in April but cannot be sure. The reason I assume this, is because Lysychansk has been under Russian occupation since July 1st after a bitter week of fighting which was after a month of fighting in the surrounding area with the AFU gradually withdrawing while the RAF made slow advances. Amnesty released this report yesterday (4th of August) yet this fact is not mentioned at all. This is schocking for a neutral organisation, as it stands Mykola's commentary reads as if the AFU were callously putting lives at risk with their presence, when Mykola had the misfortune to live in a key area of conflict. Lyschansk is in the Luhansk Oblast, and has been close to fighting and turmoil since 2014 and its capture was an open objective of the RAF. Amnesty may well genuinely believe that the needs of defence do not justify the actions of the AFU in Lysychansk and other similar areas, and is entitled to that believe. But that does not justify deliberately withholding important context to make its case seem more damning.
I'm not an expert on Ukrainian geography but Lysychansk in Donbas jumped out to me as I'd been following the Ukraine conflict quite closely during the battle for it. Since most of the other anecdotes come from similar frontline areas I wouldn't be surprised if a similar context presented itself.
Amnesty International researchers witnessed Ukrainian forces using hospitals as de facto military bases in five locations. In two towns, dozens of soldiers were resting, milling about, and eating meals in hospitals. In another town, soldiers were firing from near the hospital.
A Russian air strike on 28 April injured two employees at a medical laboratory in a suburb of Kharkiv after Ukrainian forces had set up a base in the compound.
Using hospitals for military purposes is a clear violation of international humanitarian law.
Lot to unpack here. The key detail is using a hospital for military purposes. Its perfectly fine to make use of a hospital as a hospital provided its clearly designated as a hospital. This quotation is the extent of the reports comments on hospitals, it apart from saying the AFU fired from a position "near" a hospital without specifying none of the occasions listed contain any accusations of them using them for military purposes. Resting and eating and "milling about" aren't antagonistic acts.
The Geneva Convention's Article 19 states
The fact that sick or wounded members of the armed forces are nursed in these hospitals, or the presence of small arms and ammunition taken from such combatants and not yet been handed to the proper service, shall not be considered to be acts harmful to the enemy.
The article also makes provisions for what should be done if it is believed that a hospital is being used for military purposes.
The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit and after such warning has remained unheeded.
Simply Amnesty is being misleading here, the usage of civilian hospitals in war time is heavily regulated by the Geneva Conventions to allow usage by military forces. The only incident mentioned that would qualify as an act harmful to the enemy is the case where AFU forces fired on RAF positions near a hospital. And then the RAF response is supposed to follow a set pattern assuming the RAF believed the AFU fire came from the hospital itself. Though curiously the report doesn't mention the RAF's response in that case so we do not know if they complied with the Conventions.
The only time a RAF response is documented is an attack on a medical laboratory in Kharkiv on the 28th of April. But in that report there is no mention of the AFU taking any action harmful to the enemy. According to Amnesty they were targeted for "setting up a base in the compound" but doesn't say what that base was or what it was doing. That they don't say is kinda suspicious, and they also don't register any attempt by the RAF to issue a warning or a time limit to cease aggressive acts before their airforce bombed it. So this is evidence of a RAF violation of international humanitarian law but its framed as a Ukrainian violation.
This section should've been cut, it misrepresents international law and has no substantial commentary or evidence. Its inclusion is not a positive indicator.
The Ukrainian military has routinely set up bases in schools in towns and villages in Donbas and in the Mykolaiv area. Schools have been temporarily closed to students since the conflict began, but in most cases the buildings were located close to populated civilian neighbourhoods
I've highlighted the bit about school closures because the report accuses the Ukrainian government of taking no action to protect the civilian population since international humanitarian customs and law do in fact make provision for a military to defend urban areas the key plank in Amnesty's framing actually resides on a lack of measures to limit harm to the civilian population. But this is contradicted here since there is a policy of school closures in areas of active fighting or close to it like Donbas and Mykolaiv. I should also note that I have seen the Ukrainian government arrange evacuations for areas close to the frontlines including in Donbas and Kharkiv, which is another reason why a timeline of events is crucial information since it would show whether or not the AFU actions in this report happened before or during an evacuation policy in the areas they took place in. If all of these events took place before evacuation policies and curfews were put in place it wouldn't be enough to condemn the AFU but it would support Amnesty's view a bit, though in the interests of transparency they should acknowledge and note when those policies were applied in the areas covered.
Back to schools, I get why this is included and it's not a good sign. Simply put if a school is not in use and the army in question does not disguise it as if it is, then it's simply an empty building and fine for military usage. It is not against international law. However soldiers in schools i.e. the domain of children is an unpleasant image and I've seen similar reports about RAF occupation of schools for the same reason. Though at least their some of the schools were being shown because the RAF were accused of forcing civilians into them and refusing to let them leave even when there was combat, or there was evidence of torture.
Amnesty just documents AFU members being in an empty building and then the RAF attacks them.
International humanitarian law does not specifically ban parties to a conflict from basing themselves in schools that are not in session. However, militaries have an obligation to avoid using schools that are near houses or apartment buildings full of civilians, putting these lives at risk, unless there is a compelling military need. If they do so, they should warn civilians and, if necessary, help them evacuate. This did not appear to have happened in the cases examined by Amnesty International.
No attempt is made by Amnesty International to establish a compelling military need or its absence, though again since it should be kept in mind largely confined to the Donbas and Mykolaiv oblasts, both sites of heavy fighting as both the AFU and RAF fight for control.
Ukraine is one of 114 countries that have endorsed the Safe Schools Declaration, an agreement to protect education amid armed conflict, which allows parties to make use of abandoned or evacuated schools only where there is no viable alternative.
This is true, but since the Amnesty report made no effort to establish a viable alternative and it is not clear whether or not they even have a framework for determination most of the section of the report regarding schools shouldn't have been including as the key determining factors for whether or not this would constitute a violation of international law have not been proved.
The final section is a brief section condemning indiscriminate attacks by Russian forces. At a glance this may seem like a welcome attempt to add some balance and allay fears that Amnesty is criticising the defenders in a war started by the other side, but it also includes some issues for the reports neutrality and accuracy.
Many of the Russian strikes that Amnesty International documented in recent months were carried out with inherently indiscriminate weapons, including internationally banned cluster munitions, or with other explosive weapons with wide area effects. Others used guided weapons with varying levels of accuracy; in some cases, the weapons were precise enough to target specific objects.
This is true but it raises some issues, since the RAF widely use indiscriminate attacks then how exactly does it know that the AFU actions prompted the attacks? The evidence Amnesty uses is proximity of attacks to AFU positions that have also been determined to be in or near a civilian area. But the only time in the report the accuracy of the weapons used in RAF strikes is mentioned it is an indiscriminate attack using cluster munitions over a neighbourhood.
In one town in Donbas on 6 May, Russian forces used widely banned and inherently indiscriminate cluster munitions over a neighbourhood of mostly single or two-storey homes where Ukrainian forces were operating artillery. Shrapnel damaged the walls of the house where Anna, 70, lives with her son and 95-year-old mother.
The presence of artillery makes this case a highly likely example of what Amnesty alleges in the report so its no surprise this is one of the few incidents to receive a detailed recounting. Ultimately Amnesty's report is up against the right of defence. Wars are situations of constant change but in situations were one nation has invaded another the main (though not sole) determiner of where the fighting happens is the aggressor power.
The defender which in this case is Ukraine is usually reactive and on a short notice, where it puts its troops and how often it depends on what the attacker is doing. So while it can be argued that the AFU's actions in many of these cases contributed to the harm or potential harm of civilians closest to them, that isn't inherently a breach of international law, it depends on what the military is doing in that area, what its opponents are doing, and if their are viable alternatives and crucially if the military leadership knew about these alternatives and made conscious decisions to not use them. So for these events to count as breaches we would need to know all of this information for every single incident documented otherwise what the AFU is doing is unfortunate but ultimately a result of the wider conflict.
And to be perfectly honest Amnesty International is clearly just using its reputation to do the work of proving its case for it. It says the AFU is doing these things for no real military reason and since Amnesty International are regarded as experts we're supposed to take them at their word. And as the Lysychansk incident previously covered has shown, even my extremely limited knowledge of Ukraine has given me reason to seriously question a lot of their judgements.
The report concludes with this statement.
Amnesty International contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence with the findings of the research on 29 July 2022. At the time of publication, they had not yet responded.
Which did not stand out to me at the time of reading, but became important once the situation developed.
The context
After this report was published Amnesty International's Ukraine branch went public with a series of criticisms of the report. Their statement in Ukrainian can be found here. an English translation was provided here.
To summarise, this report while based on the work of Ukrainian Amnesty International workers, in an active warzone was written by the international office with the Ukrainian branch having no input in its compiling. In addition the Ukrainian office had voiced a series of complaints and worries about the report that were ignored by the higher office. Also the decision to ask for a response from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence was a concession to the Ukrainian branch, only the report was published soon after the request was made. So that concluding statement about receiving no reply is a deliberate manipulation.
The Ukrainian office's criticism of this report was so strong that they have refused to share or translate it. The head of Amnesty International Agnes Callmard has branded critics of the report trolls, which includes the organisation's own Ukrainian office. The head of the Ukrainian office Oksana Pokalchuk has since resigned citing the refusal of Amnesty International's central administration to respond to her over this report.
So the answer to this reports shortcomings is clear. It ignored the team on the ground and refused to acknowledge criticism. Before I read the criticism of Amnesty International Ukraine, I would've assumed that Amnesty International had bowed to the pressure of its neutral positioning and rushed out a report after receiving a handful of reports of the AFU potentially putting people in harms way. This would explain the vagueness of many of the incidents and the lack of follow up or proof for the parts that actually relate to international law.
I thought this because Amnesty has written up several important reports and investigations relating to the activities of the RAF. Though of course, those reports were written by the same Ukrainian team now side lined. So, given the sheer overwhelming accounts of conflict atrocities laid at the hand of the RAF and its auxiliaries, Amnesty head office were worried that they needed to provide some criticism of the AFU for balance, and in the process sidelined their own hard working and life risking activists and staff in Ukraine.
Its a terrible report whose shortcomings are being used as propaganda, and that Amnesty caused a rift with a dedicated human rights team in Ukraine to write it is pretty sad. Amnesty for its faults is an important resource for documenting and fighting injustice, I hope the damage this causes to the organisation and its reputation is not fatal but forces them to recognise this is the wrong way to go and they rebuild.
The message that in war the civilian population pay the highest price is an important one to spread, but if you take a strict adherence to a legal framework like Amnesty does, you have to actually prove the requirements for a legal violation. This report deliberately distorts international law and takes a number of incidents many of which are highly dubious to allege a consistent and deliberate pattern. I sympathise with the civilians interviewed in the report, but their calamities were brought about by the conflict itself and so far their is nothing in Amnesty's report to prove that the AFU are acting recklessly or deliberately vindictively.
There is also a danger that with this reports exploitation for propaganda and the destruction of trust between the international organisation and the Ukrainian office, if the AFU or Ukrainian government does embark on policies that violate human rights its unlikely that Amnesty will be able to mount an effective opposition. I am not a Ukrainian troll or patriot, the right to defence does not give a power and free hand to behave how it likes. If the AFU are committing human rights violations I want to know about it so we can take steps to stop it. But thanks to this report and the way it was published if Amnesty International is the source I'll have to await independent confirmation.
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