Human rights activists from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a strong rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine has ruptured decades of nearly uninterrupted peace in Europe, and to the Belarusian president, his authoritarian ally.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2022 prize to imprisoned Belarus activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties.

Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the panel wanted to honor “three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence.”

“We are in the midst of a war and we are talking about two authoritarian regimes and one nation fighting a war and we would like to highlight the importance of civil society,” she said.

In Ukraine, there was some resentment at the Nobel committee for awarding the Ukrainian group alongside activists from Russia and Belarus, whose government allowed Russian forces to attack Ukraine from its territory early in the war.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that the Nobel committee has “an interesting understanding of the word ‘peace’ if representatives of two countries that attacked a third one receive” the prize together.

“Neither Russian nor Belarusian organizations were able to organize resistance to the war,” he added.

Belarus’ Foreign Ministry denounced the Nobel Committee for honoring Bialiatski, with the spokesman calling its choices in recent years so “politicized” that “Alfred Nobel got tired of turning in his grave.”