Russian attack | Finnish researcher describes Amnesty’s Ukraine report as “rarely clumsy and bad”

Foreign countries|Russian invasion

Human rights organization Recent from Amnesty International report Ukraine’s war crimes during Russia’s war of aggression have raised widespread criticism both in Ukraine and internationally. In its report, Amnesty accused Ukrainian soldiers of endangering civilians.

Ukraine has accused Amnesty of equating Ukrainian and Russian war crimes and reinforcing Russian narratives. As a result of the report, the representative of Amnesty Ukraine resigned from his position.

On Sunday, Amnesty apologized for the “anxiety and anger” caused by the report, but did not resign from it.

Read more: Ukraine rejects report on endangering civilians: The media has wondered how using empty buildings as bases could violate international agreements

Embassy of Russia in the United States wrote On his Telegram channel, that Russia has brought up the issues mentioned in the report several times before, and that the report will help readers “make the right conclusions”.

Foreign policy senior researcher at the institute Jussi Lassila considers it special that Amnesty has brought up Ukraine’s general violation of the rules of the game of war in a situation where very brutal actions have appeared on the part of Russia.

“Then we should really see how Russia or the Kremlin will take care of something like this,” says Lassila.

“The timing is lousy and the way of reporting is lousy.”

Lassila takes it for granted that Ukraine has also committed human rights violations in the war. However, he describes Amnesty’s report as “rarely clumsy and bad”.

“If you want to take the case now [Ukrainan ihmisoikeus­loukkaukset] brought up, which of course is the task of such non-governmental organizations, then it should have been realized to frame it in a different way”, says Lassila.

Framing means placing information in a certain context and what things are then emphasized and what is left to less attention.

According to Lassila, the human rights violations in Ukraine and the context of the Russian attack cannot be presented as separate from each other, because the moral situation in Ukraine is exceptionally clear.

“This is an absolute criminal attack by a larger state, even against treaties that it itself has ratified. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia itself has accepted Ukraine’s territorial integrity and now it is violating it, which means that the background is the most flagrant possible violation of international agreements.”

According to Lassila, Russia is looking for external, especially Western, support for its own efforts and is trying to make “everything possible” out of Amnesty’s report.

“Russia tries to make full use of all kinds of dispersion and different interpretations that arise from such a situation in its own propaganda or information. There should be an understanding of the political contexts if we are going to make such exits with their inadequate frameworks,” says Lassila.

Amnesty also groped last year when it announced that the opposition leader was in prison To Alexei Navalny first as a prisoner of conscience and then backtracking on his positions, citing Navalny’s previous questionable comments. Later, Amnesty changed its position again.

Read more: The human rights organization Amnesty starts calling Alexei Navalny a prisoner of conscience again

“It was the same naivete and lack of understanding of timing and context. Even in that situation, the Kremlin was thirsty for Western understanding, and Amnesty fell into that role with its actions,” states Lassila.

According to Lassila, authorities like Amnesty should to be very clear about how the Kremlin and the Russian authorities seize the exits and use them to their advantage.

“Somehow a rare group of people who don’t know the context and in this sense are politically illiterate on the payroll of a quite significant international organization.”

Amnesty Executive director of the Finland department Frank Johansson told earlier that Amnesty, as an independent organization, strives to communicate openly about the war crimes of both sides.

“At the same time, we admit that we have failed in communication. We did not want the report to be interpreted as blaming Ukraine for Russian war crimes. It should have been pointed out in an even clearer way that Russia is the main culprit”, Johansson said on Sunday.

Read more: Amnesty’s Finnish branch did not expect the outrage caused by the Ukraine report, but stands behind it: “The atmosphere of discussion has turned black and white”

Amnesty has reported on several human rights violations in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which began in February 2022, and the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine since 2014 between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists.

In its annual report published in March of this year, Amnesty said that Russia’s military actions are based on systematic human rights violations, and that Russia’s attack on Ukraine is a flagrant violation of international law.