When it comes to fighting a war and staying in it to win it, the Russians apparently have no monopoly on ruthlessness. A new report from a prominent human rights organization says Ukraine’s military is endangering civilians by positioning its forces in residential areas, including at schools and hospitals, as it seeks to repel the Russian invasion. 

In unambiguous terms, Amnesty International accuses Ukraine of violating international humanitarian law by alleging officials are essentially turning civilian structures into military targets. “The ensuing Russian strikes in populated areas have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure,” the report reads in part. 

The group’s researchers investigated Russian strikes in and around Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and the Donbas region between April and July by inspecting strike sites; interviewing survivors, witnesses, and relatives of victims of attacks; and by carrying out remote-sensing, satellite imagery corroboration and weapons analysis. Throughout the investigations, they found “evidence of Ukrainian forces launching strikes from within residential areas as well as basing themselves in civilian buildings in 19 towns and villages in the regions.”

More damning is the organization’s claim that “most residential areas where soldiers located themselves were miles away from front lines and viable alternatives were available that would not have endangered civilians — such as military bases, densely-wooded areas or other structures further from residential areas.”  

Among the Ukrainians interviewed for the investigation was a mother of a 50-year-old man killed in a rocket attack on June 10 in a village south of Mykolaiv. Her testimony is brief but unsettling: “The military were staying in a house next to our home and my son often took food to the soldiers,” she said, adding, “I begged him several times to stay away from there because I was afraid for his safety. That afternoon, when the strike happened, my son was in the courtyard of our home and I was in the house. He was killed on the spot.”

One interviewee from Lysychansk in the Dombas told Amnesty investigators, “I don’t understand why our military is firing from the cities and not from the field.” Said another Lysychansk resident, “There is definitely military activity in the neighborhood. When there is outgoing fire, we hear incoming fire afterwards.” 

In Bakhmut, part of the fiercely contested Donetsk region, several residents told Amnesty that the Ukrainian military had been using a building barely 20 yards across the street from a residential high-rise. On May 18, according to the accounts cited in the report, a Russian missile struck the front of the building, partly destroying five apartments and damaging nearby buildings.

Amnesty researchers also “witnessed Ukrainian forces using hospitals as de facto military bases in five locations” and reported that “in two towns, dozens of soldiers were resting, milling about and eating meals in hospitals” while “in another town, soldiers were firing from near a hospital.” They claim that a Russian airstrike on April 28 “injured two employees at a medical laboratory in a suburb of Kharkiv after Ukrainian forces had set up a base in the compound.” Also, “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.”

Multiple accounts such as these led Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard, to state in the report that “being in a defensive position does not exempt the Ukrainian military from respecting international humanitarian law.” The group also accused Russia of carrying out attacks with “inherently indiscriminate weapons, including internationally-banned cluster munitions.” 

The Ukrainian military’s practice of locating military objectives within populated areas ”does not in any way justify indiscriminate Russian attacks,” the report stated,  with the admonition that “All parties to a conflict must at all times distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects and take all feasible precautions — including in their choice of weapons — to minimize civilian harm.”

Amnesty International says it shared its findings with Ukraine’s ministry of defense on July 29. That would have given officials nearly one week to respond before the group made the report public, but it says no response had been received. In her statement accompanying the report, Ms. Callamard said that “the Ukrainian government should immediately ensure that it locates its forces away from populated areas, or should evacuate civilians from areas where the military is operating.”

Underscoring the timeliness of the report, a major battle is looming at Russian-occupied Kherson and Russian shelling of major Ukrainian cities such as Kharkiv continues unabated. To what extent Ukraine’s leaders view civilians caught in the crossfire as a necessary evil for ejecting Russians from Ukraine, and how willing or able they are to adjust battlefield tactics so as keep them out of harm’s way, remains to be seen.