Fedot, but not that one. About the Amnesty International report on the war crimes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
Strange events are taking place around the report of the human rights organization Amnesty International (AI), in which for the first time accusations were made of the Ukrainian army of violating humanitarian law during the conflict with Russia. Strange already because in some Russian publications this report is positioned almost as a breakthrough. Hooray, the eyes of the West are opening!
Some fish memory is present in some. As if there were no earlier AI statements. As if the pronounced pro-Ukrainian position of this organization is not known. The report is just an attempt to beautifully bring Kyiv out of the blow or to share accusations of war crimes with Russia.
A very good and, most importantly, easily conducted information campaign. Everyone remembers the famous saying about smoke, which does not exist without fire. Due to geography, I published a message about this report in my telegram channel, probably one of the first. And in the very first message he wrote that the report was "smelly". So unobtrusively "Ukraine allows violations and the use of children's institutions as strongholds, but Russia ...".
Now, after a lapse of time, it turns out that the International Criminal Court is very interested in the shelling. And the most interesting thing is that this court works very closely with the joint investigation team. It would seem that this is quite logical. But there are nuances. A joint investigation team was created by Poland, Lithuania and... Ukraine.
What conclusions this investigation team will come to, I think, is clear to everyone. Add here the decision of the US Department of Justice to create a departmental group to help Ukraine in the investigation of Russian war crimes. This decision was made on June 21st. But few places are advertised. US Attorney General Merrick Garland only casually mentioned the group:
"The US Department of Justice will seek to use all mechanisms to bring to justice those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine."
And everything would be fine if it were not for another name, legendary for the United States, "the legendary Nazi hunter" Eli M. Rosenbaum. It was this man who led the new group. Former director of the US Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations (OSI), director of the Department of Human Rights Strategy and Policy at the US Department of Justice. The Americans seem to be equating the Nazis and Russian soldiers.
It is this group that will provide operational assistance and advice in the field of criminal prosecution, as well as participate in the collection of evidence, forensic examinations and conduct legal analysis for the International Criminal Court.
So is this really a breakthrough and insight of the West, or is it just another campaign to denigrate Russia in the eyes of its own population? It is clear that such a campaign will not work on Russians, but for citizens of Western countries it will do. In conditions of limited truthful information, people will perceive any information as reliable.
Report as an attempt to kill the trickles of truth that make their way into the Western media
The successes of the Russian army, the work of our media, and most importantly, the appearance in foreign media of interviews with mercenaries who fled from the territory of Ukraine, with journalists who visited there and those who represent the pro-Russian side of the conflict, make the Western reader think about whether everything that is published in press.
The stories of the mercenaries about the atrocities of the Ukrainian army were too frank. Too much information leaked to the West after the defeat and capture of "Azov" in Mariupol. To believe in such a western man in the street can not. The propaganda machine works very well there, and the image of Russia, created over the past decades, plays its role.
The Americans are interesting in this regard. I would even say exemplary and indicative for our media. Not so long ago, at a briefing on June 15, again unnoticed by our media, the American Ambassador-at-Large Beth Van Shack, who is in charge of suppressing war crimes and investigating them, expressed an interesting idea.
The essence of the thought is that war crimes in any war are committed by both sides. The conflict in Ukraine is no exception. Further, it is more interesting: the Ukrainian side recognizes such violations in its army and seeks to bring the perpetrators to justice, while Russia does not recognize the existence of crimes.
Isn't it a beautiful combination? Whether there are crimes or not, it doesn't matter. In any war, they are an integral part of the database. It is not necessary to prove the existence of crimes. We just need to recognize and punish anyone. True, the American diplomat herself did not particularly bother to look for examples of such actions by Russia and Ukraine.
Let's go back to Amnesty International. So, in the visible part of the report, we see facts of violations by the AFU. The Ukrainian military use the premises of children's institutions, hospitals, educational institutions for their own needs. The fact that they are fighting from these premises is silent in the report. There were no human rights activists there at that time, which means that it is impossible to write about it.
It gives the impression of a seemingly objective view of the situation. But then again, such a strange objectivity. If Amnesty International representatives were not present at the event, do not describe the event. But... what about the opposite side? There were none on the side of the allied forces either, but they write about this side!
Now about what is happening now. The report has been published. He, for obvious reasons, did not arouse special interest. The media have been instructed or advised not to reprint the report or refer to it, as I understand it. There is no reaction from Western politicians either. Everyone is well aware that the actions of Ukrainians are sanctioned by the same people who control European politicians.
What is the result? And the result is the following. Some independent organization published some report, of which many are published almost daily. This report has no value and is not worth paying attention to. An ordinary passing article, nothing more.
Could it be otherwise? Unfortunately no. The recognition of the report, the comments of politicians and leaders of countries will automatically raise questions for Western politicians. Why does NATO support criminals? Why didn't Europe and the US react to Russia's fair arguments? Well and further, in the same spirit. That in conditions when those in power in Europe and the United States are catastrophically losing popularity and power, threatens to collapse the entire political system of the West.
The reaction of the parties to the conflict
Let's start with Kyiv. The Ukrainian authorities do not differ in intelligence and ingenuity, and therefore they reacted in Kyiv in a completely different way than the West needed. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine almost immediately accused Amnesty International of bias in his video message:
“This behavior of Amnesty International is not about finding and reporting the truth to the world ... Therefore, stop doing this creation of a fake reality where everyone is slightly to blame for something.”
Dmitry Podolyak, a staff PR specialist for the Zelensky government, went even further on his Twitter. He generally accused human rights activists of working for Moscow and trying to disrupt the supply of Western weapons to Ukraine! No more and no less. To be honest, these hysterical cries are completely incomprehensible to me.
Is it really incomprehensible that, by and large, the report of Western human rights activists is beneficial to Kyiv! Why? Yes, simply because if the Western media does not report at least something about the crimes of the AFU, then the leaked reports of the Russian media, briefings by the RF Ministry of Defense and reports of military correspondents will create huge problems for the image of Ukraine in the eyes of the European reader.
Moscow's reaction was perfectly demonstrated by our Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Remember his BBC interview on June 16 this year. One phrase that smears not only the Air Force, but the entire Western press on the spat on the floor:
“Do you show the results of the AFU bombing of settlements or do you not show them in your reports? You don't show it."
So, Lavrov, by the way, also said there that the Western media do not cover the criminal actions of the Ukrainian military in the Donbass and other places at all. References to the fact that Western journalists are not allowed into the combat zone, our minister considers a primitive "excuse". Those journalists who work in our country are well aware of these crimes. But they are silent...
The representative of our Defense Ministry, Deputy Minister of Defense Alexander Fomin spoke much more sharply:
“Every day, military personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and nationalist battalions commit crimes that are not properly appreciated by the international community.”
“... a lot of falsifications about crimes allegedly committed by Russian military personnel are posted on the Internet.”
“Such connivance by the international community, as well as the desire of the Ukrainian authorities to hide their crimes, in our opinion, led to the tragedy in the present. the village of Yelenovka to the shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine of the place where Ukrainian prisoners of war are kept.”
Short summary
I'm not going to jump to conclusions. I believe that the published report is nothing more than a well-thought-out and well-thought-out move, among other moves, in the campaign to discredit the Russian armed forces, the Russian authorities and our state as a whole.
The reaction to the report is also quite predictable. It was not in vain that I described in detail those who today are engaged in checking the facts set out in the report. What conclusions will be drawn by these people is clear. The facts will either be falsified, or conclusions will be drawn on the basis of false facts. This has happened more than once at the highest level. Do you remember the links of Western politicians to social networks and messages of various bloggers?
On the whole, the NWO continues, as does the information war between Russia and the West. The main thing for today remains the solution of the tasks set by the Supreme before the start of the NWO. A military victory is likely to bring victory in the information war as well. You can defeat the dreamers only by providing real facts and evidence.
Information