After the publication of the scandalous report by Amnesty International, in which the human rights organization accuses Ukraine of having unnecessarily endangered civilians with its military tactics, the first consequences have now emerged.
However, not by the part of the organization that published the report.
The head of Amnesty International’s Ukraine office resigned on Friday evening. Oksana Pokalchuk announced her resignation on Facebook, accusing Amnesty International of hijacking Russian propaganda.
︎ The report, which was published on Thursday (August 4), serves dangerous Kremlin propaganda with the allegations against Ukraine. Because: Not Ukraine, but dictator Vladimir Putin (69) and his henchmen endanger and kill thousands of Ukrainian civilians with their brutal war of aggression against Ukraine, driving millions to flee.
“Unless you live in a country that’s being invaded by occupiers who are tearing it to pieces, you probably don’t understand what it’s like to condemn an army of defenders,” Pokalchuk said in her resignation message. “And there are no words in any language that can convey that to someone who hasn’t experienced that pain.”
Pokalchuk said she tried to warn Amnesty International’s top management that the report is unilateral and does not sufficiently take into account the Ukrainian position. However, she was ignored.
Amnesty International had triggered outrage in Kyiv with the report presented on Thursday. President Volodymyr Zelenskyj (44) accused the organization of “putting victims and attackers on the same level, so to speak”. Sergej Sumlenny, former head of the Kyiv office of the Böll Foundation, which is close to the Greens, also came to this conclusion in BILD.
“The Amnesty report is a flawless perpetrator-victim reversal and reflects the worst narratives of Russian propaganda,” Sumlenny said.
► And further: “It seems that the report was prepared by people who have only very limited knowledge of this war.” neither surprised nor shocked,” he told BILD. “This is what many in Kyiv and in the NGO scene have known for a long time. It’s wonderful that the cat is finally out of the bag.”
Pokalchuk stated that “the organization inadvertently made a statement that sounded like support for the Russian narrative. Instead, in an effort to protect civilians, this report became a Russian propaganda tool,” she lamented.
Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said on Friday that the organization “stands whole” by its report.