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 November 2026)

 

Madam President,

 

I wish to thank the Latvian Presidency for convening this meeting and Minister Baiba Braže for chairing it.

This is Latvia's first presidency of the Security Council in history.

Ukraine wishes you every success in this challenging mission.

I am also grateful to Denmark, France, Greece, and the United Kingdom for supporting Ukraine's request.

I thank Assistant Secretary-General Mohamed Yahya and Director Kayoko Gotoh for their sobering briefings, which once again lay bare the sheer brutality of Russia’s war crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine.

I must, however, urge once again our colleagues from the UN Secretariat not to blindly repeat Russian figures of alleged civilian casualties that cannot be verified independently by the UN.

So please stop invoking the wrong impression as if Ukraine is targeting civilians.

Stop putting on an equal footing Russia’s genocidal, deliberate and systematic attacks against Ukraine, against our civilian population and the legitimate strikes of Ukraine against military targets in Russia, exercising our inherent right of self-defense.

We strictly adhere to the international humanitarian law. So please stop doing this. It’s wrong.

To be honest, Ukrainians were quite shocked, if not to say outraged.

When we just learned that the Secretary-General has recently appointed a high-level Russian official as Assistant-Secretary-General for Mine Action and Police.

Mine Action! It must be a joke.

Russia is responsible for turning Ukraine into the most contaminated country in the world by mines.

And now this letting the fox guard the henhouse.

So instead of sitting here and pushing the Council to adopt resolutions necessary to stop this war, the UN is completely absent and is not in the driver’s seat of any peace mediation.

It’s not even in the car.

It’s not even in the trunk of this car.

Madam President,

Russia cynically claims that it supported convening this meeting.

But it did not do so to express remorse for the latest tragic record of civilian casualties in Ukraine, officially documented in October by the UN.

Nor was it motivated by any desire to offer a realistic pathway towards ending Moscow’s barbaric war.

Russia’s sole purpose was to divert the Council’s attention from its own vicious and deliberate campaign to systematically destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and from the atrocities unparalleled in modern history that it continues to perpetrate, as we seat here, against the civilian population of Ukraine.

Before I proceed with my statement, I cannot leave unanswered the torrent of fabrications and falsehoods we have just heard from the Russian representative.

I must confess, Mr. Nebenzia, who is not here, even though he has promised that he is listening to Ukraine, that I was almost moved now to tears by your extraordinary display of compassion for Ukrainian servicemen.

He seemed so deeply troubled, so genuinely distressed by their alleged plight, that I began to wonder whether he had perhaps misunderstood your calling.

So I would like to offer a piece of advice.

Given your apparently boundless concern for the rights and welfare of Ukrainian soldiers, why not apply for the position of Military Ombudsman in Ukraine?

There is, however, one small obstacle: the position is already occupied.

For Ukraine, the protection of the rights of our soldiers and their families is a matter of the highest priority for our civil society and government alike.

This is precisely why any allegations of possible violations of their rights understandably provoke such a strong public reaction.

So, since there is no vacancy for Mr. Nebenzia in Ukraine, may I suggest that you direct his remarkable zeal, his compassion and newly discovered humanitarian enthusiasm towards his own compatriots in Russia.

I can assure, Mr. Nebenzia, they are in far greater need of your attention.

After all, more than 54,000 Russian servicemen were killed on Ukrainian soil in October alone.

Yes, 54 thousand in just one month.

Perhaps you could begin by visiting the families of those 54,000 Russian soldiers who laid down their lives or were wounded, all sacrificed on the altar of Putin’s insane imperial ambition.

In other words, last month alone the Russian army was bleeding manpower at a rate of one soldier every 48 seconds.

So, by the time we adjourn another 180+ Russian soldiers will be dead or wounded.

And since Mr. Nebenzia is now sitting comfortably in New York, perhaps you could at least send their mothers and widows a postcard from here.

Offer them a few words of consolation. Explain to them why their sons and husbands had to die for absolutely nothing.

And if visiting these families is not quite to his taste, there is another possibility.

Why not establish an NGO dedicated to defending the rights of Russian servicemen and their families?

Mr. Nebenzia would certainly have no shortage of work.

Hundreds of videos documenting torture, brutal abuse and humiliation of your soldiers within the Russian armed forces circulate on the internet.

In many instances, the commanders or comrades themselves record and publish these horrifying accounts.

Their families, meanwhile, are left virtually powerless, with no effective means of protecting their loved ones.

Mr. Nebenzia could finally put your newly discovered humanitarian ardour to some genuinely useful purpose.

And as for this theatrical allegations about so-called torture chambers in Ukraine — this new grotesque scarecrow that Russia is attempting to conjure up before this Council — may I suggest that you first acquaint yourself with the findings of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation.

Her report, published just two weeks ago, paints a rather different, a very grim picture of the country whose representatives seem so preoccupied with fabricated atrocities elsewhere.

Allow me to quote just one finding from that report: “torture and ill-treatment in Russian places of detention have become an ordinary, almost everyday occurrence”.

So, Mr. Nebenzia, before Russia lectures the rest of the world on human rights, perhaps you might take a good look in the mirror.

Madam President,

I would strongly encourage every member of this Council to read this newest report of UN Special Rapporteur Mariana Katzarova, which was transmitted by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly just 10 days ago in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 60/21.

It is a mere 22 pages, yet virtually every line is enough to make one’s blood run cold and fill one with profound horror and disgust.

Let me quote from the summary of this shocking UN report: “Torture and ill-treatment remained widespread, systematic and part of a government strategy of repression at home and aggression abroad, with persistent impunity”.

Let me further quote from para 68 of the report:

“Torture, including rape and sexual violence against Ukrainian detainees, is pervasive.

Courts routinely admit confessions obtained through torture and fail to order investigations.

The diary of Oleksandr Savov, a Ukrainian prisoner of war from the Mykolaiv region, documents torture, including electric shocks, beatings, the setting of dogs on detainees, forced nudity, sexualized humiliation, the denial of medical care and the concealment of abuse before the official outside inspections”. End quote.

Let me also quote from para 70 that cited Russian Major General Roman Demurchiev in his correspondence with his soldiers and family members, where he discussed the torture and killing of Ukrainian prisoners of war, shared photographs of severed ears and joked about collecting them as a “garland”.

Members of the Council, 

I want you to etch this image into your memory:

a Russian general collecting the cut off ears of Ukrainian prisoners of war to make a garland out of them.

According to Special Rapporteur, General Demurchiev reported that three captured Ukrainian servicemen had been beaten to death with entrenching shovels by Russian soldiers who were former prison inmates, after which their commander suggested nominating them for military awards”. End quote.

Madam President,

The Special Rapporteur recommends all of you, each members of the Council, and I quote again “pursue accountability for the crime of aggression and for international crimes against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war, including conflict-related sexual violence”. End quote.

I call upon every country represented in this Council, and indeed every Member State of the United Nations, to fulfill their obligations under Articles 129 and 130 of the Third Geneva Convention and Articles 146 and 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

States must exercise universal jurisdiction, actively search for Russian perpetrators of grave breaches committed against Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians, investigate these crimes and, where the evidence so warrants, prosecute those responsible before their national courts.

The UN Special Rapporteur also directly urges the UN member states, everyone sitting in this chamber, and I quote again “to continue to use diplomatic pressure, including targeted sanctions, in response to human rights violations by Russian officials”.

Madam President,

Before I finally turn to my statement, let me suggest that Mr. Nebenzia would be well advised to spare this Council of any further theatrical performances, exploiting a staged provocation in Petropavlivska Borshchahivka bearing the fingerprints of the Russian intelligence services while accusing Ukraine of “torture chambers”.

Mr. Nebenzia would do well to read this chilling, harrowing report of the UN Special Rapporteur before going to bed, a report that lays bare a far more disturbing reality:

torture in Russia has become so systematic, so widespread, so institutionalized that it is the very quintessence of the Russian State’s barbarism.

It is this disturbing reality, and the urgent need to put an end to it, that should command the attention of this Council and force its members to act.

Madam President,

Now, let me remind the Security Council why Ukraine requested this meeting in the first place.

On October 29, people were standing on a platform at Dnipro railway station, waiting for a commuter train.

Some were going to work, others to visit their families. And then a Russian jet-powered drone, like a bolt of lightning from the sky, came crashing down upon these peaceful civilians.

Fifteen of them never boarded that train. Their lifeless bodies were left scattered across the platform.

That very same day, two fifteen-year-old girls walking down a busy street in the center of Chernihiv were killed by a Russian missile.

The horrifying footage of a father collapsing to his knees, screaming in unbearable anguish over the loss of his daughter, that has gone viral around the world, is impossible to watch without tears.

Three more Ukrainian civilians were cold-bloodedly killed by a Russian drone in their own homes in the city of Kremenchuk.

So, on one single day, Russia slaughtered twenty Ukrainians and left many dozens more wounded.

This is precisely what compelled me to request this meeting of the Security Council.

Even though Ukrainians and I realize that all these shocking killings, unfolding before your very eyes, seem to elicit hardly any real reaction in this Chamber, I remain convinced that each member of this Council must hear these horrifying facts every month, because normally they should send a shudder of horror, they should make one’s hair stand on end.

I must look every one of you straight in the eye and remind you, that each of you bears a personal responsibility — to history and to your conscience — for this Council’s failure to act and stop this Russian bloodbath.

Madam President,

20 civilians murdered on one day. And yet, in the meantime, in more than a week that this Council has taken to convene, with all due respect for the wonderful retreat on Long Island, Russia has managed to surpass even these atrocities in the sheer scale of its barbarity.

Let me draw your attention to one village: Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region.

On November 2, people gathered at a local school to collect humanitarian aid.

Russian aircraft deliberately bombed the building.

Those who survived the first strikes rushed to the shelter. Police officers and rescuers joined them.

But even seven meters underground offered no protection from Russian bestiality. The aircraft returned.

Three-ton glide bombs came crashing down directly on the shelter, burying alive those who had sought refuge there.

At least 55 innocent lives were lost. The search for victims continues. 45 bodies are still missing.

This atrocity is hauntingly reminiscent of the massacre in the Mariupol Drama Theatre, where hundreds of civilians - mostly women and children - had sought refuge, only to be buried beneath the rubble by a Russian airstrike on March 16, 2022.

The word “CHILDREN” had been painted in huge letters on the roof the building, clearly visible from the air.

But Russian henchmen did not give a damn and killed them all.

The Mariupol theater and the school in Komyshuvakha will forever stand as grim symbols of Russia’s gravest war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And both will become part of the evidentiary record in the prosecution of every individual who planned, ordered or carried out these attacks, including those diplomats who shamelessly whitewash these crimes here at the UN.

Madam President,

I would not wish to take up any more of this Council’s valuable time by recounting, one by one, all the appalling consequences of Russia’s relentless attacks over the past week.

The list alone would consume half of time allotted for this meeting.

I will therefore transmit, later today, an official letter to the President of the Security Council and the Secretary-General, accompanied by a comprehensive account and photographic evidence of mass killings and the destruction.

As last winter, the deliberate objective of these thousands of missiles and drones is to completely destroy Ukraine’s energy and water supply infrastructure and freeze millions of people to death.

According to the latest report of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, released just a few days ago, Russia’s systematic attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure - depriving millions of civilians of electricity, heating and access to water - constitute not only war crimes, but also crimes against humanity.

And let me stress once again: unlike all the figures Mr. Nebenzia has so casually thrown around in this Chamber today — figures seemingly plucked out of thin air — what I am referring to are meticulously documented facts, independently verified by the United Nations.

Madam President,

Now, let me state once again a truth that no amount of Russia’s smoke and mirrors can obscure.

For the second month in a row, Russian forces lost ground on the battlefield in October.

According to the independent Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces captured just 139 square kilometers of Ukrainian soil, while losing control of 167 square kilometres.

The result? A net territorial loss of 28 square kilometers for Russia that keeps advancing – but rather backwards.

Russian casualty rates and territorial losses match the battlefield reality that Russian forces have lost the strategic initiative and their offensive capabilities.

Putin’s army has reached a dead end in Ukraine. His dream of further territorial conquests remains just an illusion.

And this, Madam President, is precisely why Putin is now channeling all his efforts into three things.

First, escalating the merciless slaughter of Ukraine’s civilian population.

Second, at the same time, simultaneously, intensifying sabotage operations and psychological warfare — sowing the seeds of discord within Ukrainian society, undermining trust, and driving a wedge between Ukraine and its European allies.

And third, Putin plays cynically the diplomatic card – not to bring this war to an end, but just to buy time.

To keep the diplomatic process going while Moscow continues its systematic destruction of Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, and maybe to agree to energy ceasefire only when it has inflicted a total damage.

This, in essence, is Putin’s vicious game. With a poker face, he continues to bluff, hoping to convince both US mediators and international community alike that Russia is allegedly “invincible’. No, it is not.

Madam President, 

I would also like to briefly address the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Oleshky, near Kherson.

We are relieved that Ukraine’s repeated appeals, including those made at the previous meeting of this Council, were finally heard.

As a result, about 800 hundred Ukrainians, for many months held hostage by the Russian machinery of death, were successfully rescued.

Many of you have probably seen the deeply moving footage of residents of Oleshky arriving on Ukraine-Belarus border, tears streaming down their faces.

They had escaped the Russian hell. Yet their tears were also tears of sorrow, for they had been forced to leave behind their homes.

And while we are grateful to all those who made this humanitarian mission and the temporary ceasefire in Oleshky possible — above all, of course, to the First Lady of the United States, Mrs. Melania Trump — we cannot turn a blind eye to the cynical game that Russia continues to play.

Having itself created this barbarous trap for the Ukrainian people in our temporarily occupied territories, particularly in the Kherson region, Moscow now seeks to masquerade as a benevolent humanitarian, presenting what was no more than a belated gesture of necessity as an act of its own good will.

Let us not forget who created this human tragedy in the first place. It was Russia, and it remains Russia.

I would not wish to be the fly in the ointment. There is hope in Ukraine that the miracle in Oleshky will mark the beginning of an extension of the ceasefire. Not merely a localized one, but one that would be introduced along the entire front line.

Yet even in Oleshky, we have seen that, over the course of these few days, while the guns were silent, that Russia has rotated its troops, deployed reinforcements and moved additional military equipment into the area.

Let anyone should entertain the illusion that the nightmare of Oleshky is over, the very day after this local ceasefire came to an end, Russia killed with a drone a former school principle of the town.

The humanitarian disaster for Ukrainians in the Russian trap has not ended. It has merely been interrupted.

Now, it is appalling that now Moscow seeks to capitalize on Oleshky, while at the very same time rejecting, as we just heard again in Mr. Nebenzia’s speech, any extension of similar ceasefires to other equally volatile sections of the front line, which stretches for more than 1,300 kilometers.

And there is one overriding lesson to be drawn from all this:

Only sustained international pressure, brought to bear on Russia from all sides, does, ultimately, produce results.

It does force the Kremlin to make concessions. And that is precisely why we must not merely double our efforts.

The Security Council must multiply this pressure on Moscow a hundredfold.

All of us - and above all, this Security Council - must do everything in our power to compel Russia to come to the negotiating table and stop playing games using diplomacy just as a fig leaf and an instrument of warfare.

Madam President,

Of course, Oleshky could offer a first, modest example of restoring mutual trust – a confidence-building measure that could pave the way for a genuine peace process.

Despite Russia’s cynical ploys, Ukraine still remains fully committed to the pursuit of peace.

We shall see what emerges from the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi tomorrow and on Wednesday.

But one thing is clear: without a summit at the highest level, a breakthrough is hardly within reach.

That is why Ukraine’s President stands ready to meet Putin at the earliest occasion – be it in Florida in December, on the sidelines of G20, or in any other place in the world. If need be, even in Antarctica. Anywhere, but not in Moscow.

The problem is that Putin still clings to the delusion that he can break Ukraine’s will and force us to surrender.

Let me repeat our message in this Chamber in Russian: «Не дождетесь! Не видать вам этого как своих ушей».

“You can wait until hell freezes over”.

Madam President,

Before I wrap up, I wish to convey three messages to the members of this Council.

First, although I realize I may be repeating myself – perhaps for the hundredth time in this Chamber – I urge, I do urge Member States to table and adopt a resolution obliging to conclude an immediate and unconditional ceasefire agreement.

Second, I urge not just our European allies, but all Member States to transfer to Ukraine, without delay, all available air defense systems, especially Patriot interceptors, so that we can shield Ukrainian skies from Russia’s apocalyptic rain of missiles.

To keep these lifesaving systems quietly tucked away in warehouses while, before the eyes of the world, Russia keeps murdering dozens of civilians every day and turns Ukraine into scorched earth – that is hardly a Christian thing to do.

And third, I call upon all member States, without exception – to implement the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur and exercise universal jurisdiction by initiating criminal investigations and prosecutions for grave breaches of international humanitarian law and other war crimes, particularly the systematic acts of torture perpetrated by Russian officials. There must be no impunity.

Before I conclude, I wish to address Mr. Nebenzia personally, even though he’s not here.

Last Friday, at the General Assembly’s meeting devoted to the report of the ICJ, his DPR openly threatened to take me to Court over alleged “crimes” against the Russian-speaking population which is one of the most brazen lies ever concocted by Russian propaganda.

First, let me be clear: personal threats of this nature shall be unacceptable.

This is the UN – not the gangster state, a real-life Mordor into which you have turned Russia, where people can be intimidated and abducted with impunity.

And second, let me remind Mr. Nebenzia that modern history offers numerous examples of diplomats who were brought to justice for their involvement in wars of aggression, crimes against humanity and the gravest war crimes.

In 1946, at Nuremberg, the very tribunal whose legacy your delegation so frequently invokes, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi Germany‘s Foreign Minister, was sentenced to death.

Konstantin von Neurath, another Foreign Minister, received fifteen years’ imprisonment.

In the subsequent Ministries Trial 1948, 5 senior Foreign Office diplomats of the Third Reich were convicted for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity:

State Secretary Ernst von Weizsäcker and his successor Gustav Steengracht, both sentenced to seven years;

 Wilhelm Keppler, State Secretary, sentenced to ten years;

Ernst Woermann, Head of the MFA Political Division, sentenced to seven years;

and Edmund Veesenmayer, Nazi Germany’s envoy to Hungary, sentenced to twenty years.

At the Tokyo Tribunal in 1948, Kōki Hirota, a career diplomat who had served as Foreign Minister, was sentenced to death.

Mamoru Shigemitsu, another top diplomat and Foreign Minister, received seven years’ imprisonment.

Among those convicted was also Toshio Shiratori, a Japanese career diplomat who had headed the Foreign Ministry’s Information Bureau.

He justified Japan’s seizure of Manchuria to the world press and for that he was sentenced to life imprisonment for these criminal acts and his participation in the conspiracy to wage aggressive war.

And last example – in Rwanda, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, Director of Political Affairs at the MFA, was convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda of genocide and crimes against humanity.

His sentence was ultimately set at thirty-two years.

So, I would strongly advise Mr. Nebenzia to reflect on these precedents when considering his own role in the shameless justification of Russia’s aggression here at the UN and the most appalling atrocities committed against civilians on the European soil since 1945.

Madam President,

And so, in conclusion, I would like to uphold a good tradition and address the Russian representative in his native language with a famous quote from the classics of Soviet cinema.

If, Mr. Nebenzia, still think, like the characters in the legendary comedy Gentlemen of Fortune, that “Кто ж его посадит? Он же памятник» - let me translate this iconic line - “Who would dare put him behind bars? He’s a monument!”, then allow me to offer you the answer, from another Soviet cult film noir:

“Твой дом - тюрьма! А в тюрьме сейчас ужин - макароны!».

“Your home is a prison. And dinner is being served in prison right now — Macaroni!”.

And once in The Hague, I suspect, they will be serving Dutch herring as well, but probably no pelmeni.

I thank you, Madam President.

***
Photo credit: UN Photo/Manuel Elías.