STATEMENT

by Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN

H.E. Ambassador Dr. Аndrii Melnyk, LL.M.,

at the UN Security Council meeting on 

“Maintenance of peace and security of Ukraine”


(9 October 2026)

Madam President,

Distinguished Members of the Security Council,

 

I thank the Presidency of Greece for convening today’s meeting, as well as Denmark, France, Latvia, and the United Kingdom for their support of Ukraine’s emergency request.

As always, I am also grateful to the briefers, Assistant Secretary-General Mr. Khiari and Director Ms. Connell, for bearing witness of new atrocious war crimes that Russia has committed in the last two days against the civilians in Ukraine.

Mr. Nebenzia and ASG Khiari just mentioned casualties in Russia and in the occupied territories of Ukraine by Russia. But let me stress – again and again – that this information has not been verified independently by the UN and therefore cannot be trusted.

The reason Ukraine requested this emergency meeting is simple: over the past weeks, Russia’s missile terror against the civilian population has reached unprecedented levels of brutality and casualties.

In the first eight months of this year, UN monitors verified 2,222 civilians killed and more than 13,000 injured in Ukraine. Many of them were my friends!

That is 55 per cent more than in the same months of last year.

On average, 400 civilians are killed or injured every single week. 400 hundred innocent people.

Yet September and the first week of October saw Russia plumb new depths of barbarity, accompanied by an unprecedented deterioration in the humanitarian situation.

Unable to make meaningful gains on the battlefield, Russia has resorted to mass attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure – from data centers and mobile networks to hospitals, schools and universities.

Russia has also resumed large-scale strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities and other systems essential to urban life, including water supply and sewage networks.

Since August, jet-powered Russian drones have relentlessly targeted civilians in Kyiv. On September 28, a Russian drone struck the historic headquarters of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences in the very heart of Kyiv, killing two and injuring others, including the Academy’s First Vice-President.

Heartbreaking footage of researchers desperately trying to escape the deadly smoke through the windows of the burning building spread around the world, evoking haunting memories of the 9/11 tragedy.

Since October 1, Russia has targeted bridges across the Dnipro River in Kyiv, threatening civilian traffic and seeking to paralyze the capital.

At least five strikes hit the Southern Bridge followed by two strikes on the Northern Bridge. The objective is clear: to make the capital unlivable and drive peaceful residents from their homes.

History has shown us that bridges in besieged cities are not merely pieces of infrastructure. They are lifelines for civilians, connecting people to work, hospitals, food and safety.

The destruction of the Old Bridge in Mostar in 1993 stands as a stark reminder of what happens when a city’s lifelines are severed.

Repeated Russian attacks on Kyiv’s bridges raise a grave concern that Putin’s aim is not merely to disrupt transport, but to make normal life impossible.

Even the darkest chapters of antiquity and the Middle Ages offer no parallels for the sheer brutality of Putin’s attempt to besiege Ukrainian cities with missiles, above all our capital Kyiv.

And just two days ago, on October 7, Russia committed one of the largest mass atrocities of this war:

Russian cruise missile deliberately struck a residential five-story building in the city of Pryluky, Chernihiv region, killing at least 22 people, including five children.

This heinous strike came early in the morning, while most residents were still asleep.

The world was shaken by the disturbing images of a rescue worker carrying a five-year-old girl Zoryana in his arms — a child who, by some miracle, had been pulled alive from the rubble, only to lose her family, murdered in this Russian attack.

Yesterday, on October 8, a Russian airstrike on the city of Kramatorsk killed 33 people and injured at least 20 more. A guided aerial bomb struck two public buses full of passengers.

When emergency responders arrived at the scene of this Russian war crime, they were confronted with a sight from hell: mutilated human bodies scattered across the road, right in the heart of the city.

Just in the last two days Russia killed at least 78 civilians and injured 215 more. 78 people murdered, it is more than those sitting now in this Chamber.

Mr. Nebenzia just tried to portray this new wave of missile terror against civilians as alleged retaliation. That is a lie. How cynical can you be looking for an excuse to commit the worst atrocities in modern history. There can be no justification for Russian massacres.

Distinguished members of the Council,

Some may argue that there is little point in convening emergency meetings of the Security Council, such as today’s, when we already have a monthly meeting devoted to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Under this logic, one meeting a month should be enough: discuss the war, express concern, tick the box, and move on to the next item on the agenda.

But I fundamentally disagree with that approach.

The reason is simple: the diabolical nature of Putin’s war is growing at lightning speed.

The brutality this barbaric war has reached is escalating every few weeks to a new level of violence.

We are daily confronted with atrocities on a scale that would have seemed unimaginable only weeks earlier, with new depths of cruelty and war crimes.

And I must say this openly:

Ukrainians cannot accept a merely procedural approach by the Security Council to the bloodiest and deadliest war on European soil since 1945, a war Russia has been waging for nearly five full years.

And what I find equally troubling is hearing that some members of the Council have grown tired of dealing with this issue, convinced that the Council is deadlocked and that there is little point in trying to break out of this vicious circle.

Let me be clear: this is a profoundly misguided approach.

The fact that the Security Council is allegedly stalemated does not absolve it of its responsibility to act.

On the contrary, it makes that responsibility all the more urgent.

Sadly, nowhere else in the world are civilian casualties skyrocketing at such a dramatic, exponential rate as they are in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Every time Russian drones, missiles and guided bombs shake Ukrainian soil, and we see not just one or two people killed, but dozens of dead and hundreds of injured, both our minds and our hearts struggle to comprehend such savage brutality.

We find ourselves thinking things cannot get any worse.

And yet, time and again, Russia proves that it can outdo itself in the sheer scale of its barbarity.

And, of course, the ultimate objective of this genocidal policy is the physical destruction of the Ukrainian people as such, the extermination of Ukrainians, one by one, wherever they may live.

I say this without the slightest exaggeration.

The real goal of Russia’s brutal military campaign is not, as Mr. Putin would have us believe, merely to seize the entire Donetsk region.

At its current snail’s pace of advance, the Russian army may reach this objective in 2032 at the earliest – while losing more than 40,000 troops every month or totally about 3 million soldiers - assuming they could accomplish this objective at all.

Therefore, Putin’s real objective is to pursue the ultimate eradication of the Ukrainian nation, an objective chillingly reminiscent of Hitler’s so-called “Final Solution” against the Jewish people.

Just days ago, the Kremlin’s chief propagandist Vladimir Solovyov stated it openly on live TV.

Allow me to quote his words:

“For the remaining inhabitants of Kyiv, I will repeat for the hundredth time: leave the city. You are doomed. The same goes for residents of Odesa and Mykolayiv: you’ve had your laugh. And when we are asked whether we should care about the people living in these cities, my answer is: yes, we do. We are thinking about where to bury them all”. End quote.

So, the Russians are thinking where to bury us, Ukrainians. Altogether.

Just let those words sink in, words that make one’s blood run cold.

And this is no metaphor.

We are hearing, in plain and frightening terms, calls for all Ukrainians to be killed en masse – and for their bodies to be buried or maybe burned.

Russia’s senior state officials have referred to Ukrainians as “tumors,” “rabid dogs,” “cockroaches,” “lice” and “vermin” that Russia must “disinfect.”

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and now Deputy Chairman of Security Council stated the true objective of Russia’s war with the most terrifying cynicism imaginable: and I quote: “They - Ukrainians - must be destroyed. That’s it”.

Madam President,

Let me once again draw this Council’s attention to the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Oleshky, Kherson region, under Russian occupation as one of the examples of Moscow’s systematic pattern of total annihilation.

This town, as we just heard from other speakers today and from the colleagues from the Secretariat, and surrounding villages are being cut off from the outside world: humanitarian aid is blocked, evacuations are obstructed, and thousands of civilians are left without food or medicine. They are starving before your eyes.

I therefore call on the Security Council to act without delay and adopt a resolution demanding the immediate lifting of the siege of Oleshky, the unimpeded delivery of food, medicines and other life-saving supplies; as well as the rapid and safe evacuation of civilians wishing to leave.

Let me remind this Council that it has acted before in the face of similar humanitarian catastrophes.

In resolution 2139 (2014), the Council demanded the lifting of sieges, the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the rapid and safe evacuation of civilians in Syria.

Resolution 2165 (2014) established a mechanism to facilitate and monitor humanitarian deliveries.

And in resolution 2417 (2018), the Council condemned the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and the unlawful denial of humanitarian access.

These precedents are clear. The people of Oleshky need more than expressions of concern. They need food, medicine and a way to safety.

The Council must turn its own precedents into action.

Madam President,

We have to do with a purely genocidal rhetoric of Russia that must be taken seriously.

This machinery of Russia’s growing terror against Ukrainians that we have seen in the last days and weeks serves another purpose as well.

By constantly raising the stakes and crossing ever more red lines in the scale and brutality, Russia is seeking to normalize this shocking level of terror and violence in the eyes of the international community.

Russia wants to make the unthinkable seem routine and the intolerable seem acceptable.

By constantly escalating the level of its war crimes, Russia attempts to numb our senses so that each new wave of its atrocities that should shock the conscience of mankind is perceived as nothing more than another news headline, noticed for a moment, but then forgotten.

We must not allow Russia to drag all of us – including the Security Council – into its cynical game of apathy, where even the most appalling massacres eventually provoke nothing more than a shrug.

And that is precisely why Ukraine will continue to call for emergency meetings of the Security Council.

We will not allow the evil unleashed by Russia’s war against Ukraine to become normalized.

We will not allow the Council to grow accustomed to the unacceptable, and to become indifferent to the intolerable.

I think each of us has quoted Dag Hammarskjöld’s famous words at some point – perhaps more than once – that the United Nations was not created to bring humanity to heaven, but to save it from hell.

And yet, what we are witnessing in Ukraine today, is nothing short of hell on earth – a hell that Russia is inflicting on the Ukrainian people, day after day, with mounting brutality.

And if the UN was created to save the world from hell, then surely the Security Council must finally move beyond these routine discussions and take decisive action.

Let me make one thing clear:

history will hold this Security Council – and every member represented in this chamber today – personally accountable for its inaction.

Genocide rarely begins with the world fully grasping what is unfolding.

The warning signs are there, but they are too often ignored, dismissed or recognized too late. And then, once the machinery of mass extermination is set in full motion, it can unfold with terrifying speed of sound.

Let us remember Rwanda. In just one hundred days in 1994, more than one million people were murdered in the genocide against the Tutsi. Many were slaughtered with machetes.

Now consider the cruel world we live in today. Putin commands a vastly more sophisticated arsenal of weapons capable of killing on an unimaginable scale.

So, the lesson of Rwanda is that this Council must act before these warning signs that we see become mass graves.

Unfortunately, one must give Putin his due: as a former KGB officer, he has mastered a weapon that can be no less dangerous than a nuclear arsenal – intimidation.

He knows how to weaponize fear, how to cultivate the perception that Russia is winning this war, and persuade others that resistance is futile.

We shall discard this vicious game of Mr. Putin.

Madam President,

There are two fundamental reasons why Russia will never win this war.

The first is the Russian army’s inability to make any meaningful advances along the front line.

The second, perhaps even more decisive, is the gradual collapse of the Russian economy, increasingly buckling under the unbearable burden of senseless military spending.

Few days ago, Putin was bragging at Valdai forum that Russian forces had seized 1,300 square kilometers of Ukraine in September.

Well, independent think tanks like the Institute for the Study of War, working from clear geolocated evidence, found quite the opposite:

Russia managed to occupy only 175 square kilometers but it lost 256.

The analysts, therefore, described the Kremlin’s figures as “so far from reality as to resemble hallucinations.”

The Russian army is bogged down along the whole front line.

Putin’s boasts of a swift conquest of even the entire Donetsk region are just wishful thinking.

In September, Russia paid with more than 46,000 soldiers killed and wounded in one month, the highest toll since 2022.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian defense forces continue to thwart Russian advances and liberate occupied territory.

Operation Vivaldi alone in the Donetsk region has already reclaimed approximately 140 square kilometers.

And it is precisely because Russian troops are stuck knee-deep in the mud along the front line, unable to meet yet another deadline for capturing the Donetsk region, that Putin has decided to go all in on his bloody strategy: the systematic terror of civilians and the mass killing of innocent women and children.

But this battlefield failure is only half the story.

Let me turn to the second reason why Russia is losing and will lose this war.

Russia’s war-driven economy is showing soaring signs of structural weakness. The military spending has reached 12 percent of economic output and consumes nearly half of the whole federal budget. I repeat: half of Russia’s budget is being swallowed up by the war.

Economic growth forecasts have already been reduced to 0.4 percent because the military sector is literally choking the civilian economy.

According to Russia's own fiscal data, oil and gas revenues declined by 17 per cent in the first nine months of 2026.

Even elevated oil prices have not prevented a decline in budget revenues.

Last week the Russian government sent to the parliament a plan to spend 17 trillion rubles or 200 billion USD on defense next year. It is the highest figure since the invasion began and 27 per cent more than it had planned a year ago.

To pay for it, the same document cuts planned spending on education, on health care and on social support.

Putin’s war is now being paid for with money Russia does not even have.

By its own official figures, this year’s deficit will be almost twice what was predicted, a record 3.2 per cent of GDP.

Putin himself admitted last week that the war has already cost Russia one per cent of its GDP in refinery losses alone.

That is all you need to know why Russia cannot, and will not, sustain this war indefinitely.

Its economy is bending under the unbearable burden of military spending, and its eventual collapse may be only a matter of time. Just remember the Soviet Union.

And that is without even mentioning one striking fact: Russia’s entire GDP is comparable to that of the US state of New York.

Madam President,

As we just heard, the situation in the Black Sea is particularly alarming.

Since July, Russia’s attacks have brought maritime traffic through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to a halt.

Civilian commercial vessels flying the flags of third countries have come under brutal attack, with deadly consequences.

By targeting Ukraine’s maritime exports, Russia is cutting off supplies of Ukrainian food on which 400 million of people around the world depend, mostly in the Global South.

The implications for global food security are grave. Disrupting these exports threatens to drive up food prices, deepen hunger and push already vulnerable countries closer to famine.

This is an issue that demands attention from this Council and firm action to restore freedom of navigation and ensure the safe passage of commercial shipping.

I therefore urge the Secretary-General to launch a mediation initiative aimed at restoring maritime exports of grain and other agricultural products in the Black Sea.

I once again call on the Member States of the Security Council to put forward a respective draft resolution, and I devote its next meeting to this increasingly dangerous crisis.

The Security Council must act before the disruption of food supplies translates into a still deeper global hunger crisis.

Madam President,

I must draw the Security Council’s attention to yet another deeply troubling development.

Belarus continues to facilitate Russia’s attacks against Ukraine.

It has reactivated signal relay systems on its soil that enhance the operational capabilities of Russian drones targeting Ukraine.

These systems had previously been deactivated following Ukraine’s appeals.

But their reactivation raises serious concerns about Belarus’s active contribution to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

We call on Belarus to immediately cease all forms of assistance that facilitate Russian attacks, including the use of its territory and infrastructure.

We also urge the Security Council to take all necessary steps to ensure that Belarus ends these malign activities.

Madam President,

To conclude, let me once again appeal to all members of the Security Council.

To each one of you, my colleagues:

find the courage to submit a draft resolution that would compel Russia to end its barbaric war against Ukraine, stop the daily slaughter of innocent civilians, and withdraw its troops from Ukrainian soil.

The Ukrainian people deserve a lasting and just peace, in accordance with the UN Charter.

Ukraine wants peace. Russia wants our surrender. This will never happen. Ukraine is ready to negotiate. Russia is saying “Nyet” (“No”). Russia, as we heard today, but also a few days when Mr. Lavrov was speaking from the rostrum of the General Assembly, they are saying that Russia will continue its military operation and will achieve its goals on the battlefield. This will never happen.

Madam President,

Just a few days ago, at his little Valdai propaganda jamboree, Putin was once again spewing nonsense and indulging in his trademark whining.

I quote:

“The truth is that we were not the ones who wanted this war, nor did we start it; it was others who started a war against us”. End quote.

So, in closing, as is my custom, I wish to ask the Russian representative to convey a simple message to his boss in Moscow:

All this groaning, whining and playing the victim reminds of a classic line from Soviet movie:

And I will quote it in the original Russian:

«Не виноватая я, он сам ко мне пришёл!»

“I’m not to blame – he came on to me!”

And to the members of the Security Council, let me ask you this:

How much longer will you sit through these Russian renditions of Krylov’s fables, listening to the wolf explain why it is the lamb’s fault – while Russian missiles keep killing Ukrainian children right before your eyes?

I hope that a field trip of the Council to Kyiv to witness this genocidal apocalypse unfolding in plain sight before the entire world will help you realize your own responsibility of inaction.

I thank you.