The United Nations Human Rights Report on Ukraine #FPAOpEd #TheFPAPressButton

Foreign Press Association USA

FPA President Ian Williams and Vice President Simon Locke discuss the recent AP post which appeared widely July 9 titled: “Ukraine bears share of blame for nursing home-attack” about the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and later ascribing a “major share” of the blame to making Ukraine. It was picked up by VOA and the Washington Post.

From FPA President Ian Williams: The deeply flawed dispatch unequivocally blames the bulk of casualties and rights violations on Moscow and its surrogates while, quite correctly cautioning the Ukrainian forces about reported incidents. But I find it, intriguing, puzzling and shocking that the AP report distills this into a contradiction of its main conclusions by pointing the finger at Ukraine for the nursing home incident. Even the AP report on the incident that they emphasize is anomalous. The Russians and their proxies invaded and were firing on the Care Home. The Ukrainian forces could not evacuate the residents but fought back against, never let us forget, the attackers. It was the attack that made this a military site. Whose attack? The Russians.

The tenor of the report was perhaps taken from the photo-caption with the story “A United Nations report says Ukraine’s armed forces bear a large share of the blame for a deadly assault on a care home for the elderly and disabled.” The report shows the confusion of the immediate conflict but unequivocally says “That morning, soldiers from Russian affiliated armed groups attacked the care house with heavy weapons, with patients and staff still inside.”

So, the Ukrainians failed to evacuate the residents because the roads were mined, but it is a stretch to say they share the blame, and an outright lie to say that Ukrainians “bear a large, and perhaps equal, share of the blame for what happened in Stara Krasnyanka” and it is absolute misreporting to attribute that sentiment to the UN! The US “shares the blame” for 9-11 by putting the twin towers there as a target! Was it just sloppy writing and editing? Was is a succession of editors falling over backwards to be fair and even handed? If I were a Ukrainian conspiracy theorist, I would suspect that this is Biden’s spin doctors paving the way for an abandonment of Ukraine since both sides are equally immoral. Whatever the excuse, it is culpably bad journalism.

To remind you, the UN report’s major admonition to Russia is “Immediately cease the armed attack that commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine and fully comply with the binding 16 March 2022 order on provisional measures of the International Court of Justice”

The original articles:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/un-says-ukraine-bears-share-of-blame-for-nursing-home-attack/2022/07/09/ea608b44-ff3d-11ec-b39d-71309168014b_story.html

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/countries/ua/2022-06-29/2022-06-UkraineArmedAttack-EN.pdf

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