Ukraine Ambassador Andrii Melynk addresses the UN Security Council, June 22, 2026
The Ukrainian Ambassador to the UN, Andrii Melnyk, has warned Russia, “Get out of Ukraine as quickly as possible, before it is too late.”
Melnyk said in the Security Council, “Addressing the Russian representative, I can give you one piece of advice: you will never be able to hold the occupied lands. Never.”
Ukraine requested the Council session after waves of Russian attacks on civilian areas and cultural landmarks.
Reflecting an increasing confidence in Ukraine’s counter-attacks inside Russia and occupied territory, Melnyk said Kyiv may “recalibrate and modify” its current ceasefire offer if the UN continues a “wait-and-see approach”.
“Ukraine stands ready to engage in direct negotiations with Russia to secure a just and lasting peace in accordance with the UN Charter, but our patience is not endless,” he told the Council.
He noted that Ukraine has damaged 40% of Russia’s oil refineries, limiting Moscow’s exports and setting off gasoline rationing across the country and Russian-occupied areas.
Russia’s “Relentless Barbarism”
Commenting on Russia’s airstrikes, the Ambassador chided, “Every time we think that Russia has reached the very bottom of its brutality and can sink no lower in its cruelty, Mr. Putin shocks the world again and again.”
He spoke of the heavy damage to the 11th-century Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, including the Assumption Cathedral, in Kyiv last week.
Ukraine War, Day 1,573: Russia Murders 5+, Injures 35, Damages Historic Sites in Kyiv
“Russia has once again crossed yet another red line in its relentless barbarism,” he noted. “This reprehensible Russian strike against the [Assumption] Cathedral was not only a stab in the back of Ukrainians. It was a slap in the face of the entire civilized world.”
With the attack, Vladimir Putin had “secured his place among the darkest figures of modern history”:
His name will forever be associated not only with the destruction of cities and the killing of civilians, but also with the targeting of humanity’s cultural heritage.
These crimes will be remembered for generations, even long after this war has ended and justice has been served.
