Ukraine violated laws of war & put civilian lives at risk: Amnesty International

Ukraine has violated the laws of war and put the lives of civilians at risk by deploying combat vehicles and weapons at schools and hospitals, according to an Amnesty International report released on Thursday.

"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 Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

According to the report, human rights activities reported cases when Ukrainian troops launched strikes from residential areas and deployed weapons at civil infrastructure facilities in 19 Ukrainian settlements, including in Donbass, the Kharkov and Nikolayev regions. "In the cases it documented, Amnesty is not aware that the Ukrainian military asked or assisted civilians to evacuate nearby buildings - a failure to take feasible precautions to protect civilians," Amnesty International said.


"At 22 out of 29 schools visited, Amnesty researchers either found soldiers using the premises or found evidence of current or prior military activity - including the presence of military fatigues, discarded munitions, army ration packets and military vehicles," it said after visiting Ukraine’s southeastern regions.

Apart from that, according to Amnesty International, Ukrainian troops deployed armored vehicles in residential quarters in Odessa, and used the building of a university in Bakhmut as a military base.

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.