Europe 1 with AFP 6:12 p.m., August 05, 2022

On Friday, the NGO Amnesty International said it fully assumed its report accusing the Ukrainian army of endangering civilians in its resistance to the Russian invasion, by installing military infrastructure in inhabited areas.

This report was violently rejected by Volodymyr Zelensky.

Amnesty International said Friday fully assume its report accusing the Ukrainian army of endangering civilians in its resistance to the Russian invasion by installing military infrastructure in inhabited areas, violently rejected by kyiv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went so far as to accuse Amnesty International of "attempting to grant amnesty to the terrorist state" of Russia, in reaction to the publication of this report on Thursday.

Amnesty deplores the reaction of the Ukrainian authorities

"We fully maintain our conclusions," the NGO's secretary general, Agnès Callamard, told AFP by email.

She stressed that these conclusions were "based on evidence obtained in wide-ranging investigations subject to the same rigorous standards and vetting process as all of Amnesty International's work".

She deplored the reaction of the Ukrainian authorities "which risks paralyzing a legitimate and important discussion of these issues" of protection of civilians, specifying that the government had not responded to a request for reaction or comment before the publication of the report.

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Acts "which in no way justify" the Russian violation of international law

The NGO "clearly indicated that the Ukrainian military practices" described in its report, including the installation of military infrastructure in schools and hospitals, "in no way justify Russia's systematic violations of international humanitarian law", recalled Agnès Callamard.

"Ignoring violations committed by one privileged party over the other would not be a way of accounting for human rights," she pleaded.

Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday evening in his daily video statement that this report put "the victim and the aggressor in a certain way on an equal footing".