Ukrainians aren’t surprised by Amnesty’s victim-blaming

Is Amnesty International victim-blaming? The Ukrainian military has been endangering civilians, it said, by establishing military bases and putting weapons systems in residential areas. Agnès Callamard, the organisation’s secretary-general, remarked that ‘being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law’.

It was a bizarre statement. Russian forces are attacking villages and large cities with dense populations. The Ukrainian armed forces can’t sit in a field, or put their weapons on a boat and sail away from coastal cities. As well as the morality of shifting the blame on to the aggressor, Amnesty’s statement doesn’t recognise the realities of the war situation.

Take what happened in Mariupol. The city was surrounded, and the Ukrainian military was already inside. The message of Amnesty International – implicitly – is to surrender and let Vladimir Putin win.

Amnesty’s statement was a gift for the Kremlin.