Russia Losing 1,200 Troops a Day, Ukraine’s Envoy Tells UN

Melnyk said Moscow is trying to mask military and economic weakness behind missile threats, while in reality Russia finds itself in a Zugzwang. Make us preferred on Google Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Ukraine’s UN Ambassador Andrii Melnyk addresses the UN Security Council during a meeting on Ukraine on April 20, 2026. (Photo: UN Web TV) Content Share Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Bluesky Email Copy Copied Flip Make us preferred on Google Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Andrii Melnyk, used a forceful address at the UN Security Council on Monday to accuse Russia of committing new war crimes against civilians, escalating the threat to Europe and masking deep military and economic weakness behind displays of force. He thanked Somalia’s presidency for convening the meeting, as well as Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia, Liberia and the United Kingdom for supporting Ukraine’s emergency request. He also thanked UN officials Rosemary DiCarlo and Raja Singham for documenting what he described as “new Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against civilians” in recent weeks. Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official . “We praise the leading role of the UN in providing humanitarian aid to those who have suffered,” Melnyk said. He argued that every time the international community thinks Russia has reached the limits of “lies and barbarity”, Moscow proves otherwise. Freezing civilians in hopes of breaking resistance Melnyk said Russia deliberately waited until early January, when temperatures in Ukraine dropped to -15°C (5°F) to launch some of its most devastating drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, pushing millions of civilians toward freezing conditions. “The horrific consequence of Russia’s brutal attacks was that millions of peaceful Ukrainians, including my family in Kyiv, are left for days without electricity, without heating, without water supply at a time when temperatures at night are approaching minus 20 degrees,” he said. Other Topics of Interest Zelensky Hints at Naval Drone Deployment to Middle East The Ukrainian president said he took part in a security summit on the Strait of Hormuz, adding that Ukraine’s naval drones were included in the recent deals signed with the Gulf states. He framed the attacks as part of a long and notorious tradition of warfare aimed at crushing civilian resistance by depriving people of heat, light and the means of survival. “What we are witnessing these days echo some of the most infamous precedents in human history when evil empires sought to break civilian resistance by weaponizing cold, hunger, and darkness,” he said. Melnyk said the latest strikes, which also hit Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih and Odesa earlier last week, reflected Putin’s determination to defy ongoing diplomatic efforts. “This new horrifying wave of terror, also inflicted earlier last week to many other cities across Ukraine, including Dnipro, Zaporizia, Kryvyi Rih, and Odessa, reflects the determination of Putin to slap in the face of US mediators and continue his barbaric war,” he said. Melnyk said his references to World War II were deliberate, noting that Ukrainians were among the greatest victims of Nazism and that the war fought on Ukrainian soil 80 years ago claimed up to 10 million Ukrainian lives. “Next month, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine will enter its 13th year and the 5th year since the full-scale invasion of 2022. It has now lasted longer than the war between Third Reich and the Soviet Union, 1,418 days,” he said. He argued that the comparison with World War II is becoming harder to ignore, not only because of the duration of Russia’s assault on Ukrainian statehood but also because of the destruction and human suffering it continues to produce. “So when we compare World War II to Russia’s military invasion now, the parallels are becoming increasingly shocking, not only in the sheer duration of Moscow’s brutal war against Ukrainian statehood, but also in the scale of destruction and, tragically, in the mounting toll of human suffering,” he said. He added that Russia’s systematic crimes had reached an unprecedented level. “The level of Russia’s systematic crimes we are witnessing that night has reached an unprecedented height,” he said. A direct warning to the Security Council Melnyk told the Council it could no longer treat Russia’s invasion as a routine conflict. “The Council can no longer ignore this outrageous war. Every single day that the Security Council fails to act to end Russia’s war brings more victims,” he said. He said Ukraine had requested the emergency meeting not only because of Russia’s scorched-earth tactics against civilians, but also because of a new escalation involving the so-called Oreshnik missile system. During the night of Jan. 9, he said, Russia launched one of the deadliest combined missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and, for the second time, used the “Oreshnik,” which he described as an intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile system, against his native Lviv region near the EU and NATO border. “Since this weapon can carry a nuclear payload, such a blatant attack represents a clear threat to the security of the European continent, undermining regional stability and posing serious risks to broader international peace,” he said. The so-called attack on Putin’s residence Melnyk said Russia had moved into what he called a new level of escalation and rejected Moscow’s attempt to justify the strike by citing a supposed attack on Putin’s residence. “The fact that Russia now attempts, as we just heard, to justify again the cynical strike by referring to a fake attack on a Putin residence that never occurred is just absurd,” he said. “But there is nothing new in this approach. Russia began its war of aggression against Ukraine under a fake and fabricated pretext.” He compared the claim to the Gleiwitz incident of Aug. 31, 1939, when Adolf Hitler staged a false-flag attack to justify invading Poland. “Russia’s claim, which is ridiculous, with Putin’s residence, is reminiscent of the Gleiwitz incident on 31 August 1939, when Adolf Hitler staged a false flag attack on a radio station to justify invading Poland. The perfidious logic is identical. The aggressor state fabricates a casus belli where none exists,” Melnyk said. “Let me be clear, this so-called attack on Putin residence is an absolute lie. Period.” He said the actual purpose of “Russia’s Wunderwaffe” was not battlefield necessity, but intimidation. “The true purpose of Russia’s assault with its alleged Wunderwaffe Oreshnik is brutally clear. Intimidation of Ukraine’s allies and partners,” he said. Melnyk then cited comments by Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and now deputy secretary of the National Security Council, as direct confirmation of that goal. He said Medvedev openly linked the strike to warnings against European or NATO troop deployments in Ukraine and then shared a video of the attack on the Lviv region. Melnyk also mocked Putin’s claim that the Oreshnik missile could not be intercepted, saying experts who studied its remnants found decades-old technology. “This so-called superweapon, he boasts about, is little more than just a trinket,” he said. “Our experts who analyzed the remnants of this missile found a gyroscope of the very same type with which Yuri Gagarin flew into space over 60 years ago.” He said Russia is trying to project an image of invincibility to the Council and the broader UN system, but that image is detached from reality. “Russia wants to sell to this council and the whole UN family the impression that it is invincible, but this is not the illusion. The carefully staged image of strength is nothing but a smoke and mirrors, completely detached from reality,” he said. Melnyk likened the Russian leadership to a poker player pretending to hold a winning hand while in fact facing mounting weakness. “The Russian leadership is like a game player holding the worst possible hand, yet Putin keeps a perfect poker face, pretending that he has an ace up his sleeve. In reality, Russia’s cards are extremely weak,” he said. “Russia’s position is getting more fragile every day and its bluff is evident.” “What Russia tries to project as its strength is in fact nothing else but a manifestation of vulnerability, reflecting its failure to achieve strategic military goals on the battlefield,” he said. Melnyk then turned to the economy, saying the facts show Russia is losing the war and that the remaining question is timing. “Demonstrate that Russia is losing this war. It is not a question of if, it is just a question of when,” he said. He argued that Russia’s economic and social foundations are under enormous strain, with growth now dependent on defense procurement rather than real productivity. “2025 was a breaking point of Russia’s economy, which saw a dramatic shift from short-term wartime growth to long-term economic stagnation,” he said. According to Melnyk, Russia initially benefited after the invasion from high global commodity prices and a boom driven by emergency spending, but those effects have now disappeared. Weak growth, rising taxes and shrinking revenues, he said, are eroding Moscow’s ability to finance the war. “With reserves depleting and structural damage accumulating, most experts agree that the Russian economy is and will remain at its weakest point since the turbulences of the late 1990s,” he said. Melnyk said Russia’s militarized production had temporarily boosted GDP in the first years after the full-scale invasion, but that effect had now faded. He said GDP growth slowed to 0.1 percent in late 2025 and that the IMF forecast only about 0.6 percent growth in 2026, with elevated inflation and structural stagnation expected to persist. He said growth until 2025 had relied on a sharp rise in state spending, which increased by roughly a quarter in 2024, but that driver had disappeared and there was no obvious catalyst for renewed growth in 2026. Melnyk said that, for the first time since the pandemic, Russia collected less budget revenue last year than originally planned. “When this budget was approved, revenues were set at around $500 billion, but updated forecasts suggest that they will come in closer to $447 billion,” he said. He said that marked a break from the previous three years, including 2024, when revenues had consistently exceeded initial projections, and had forced the Kremlin to seek higher tax collection to sustain war spending. He argued that the war is increasingly being financed by shrinking domestic economic activity rather than strong export surpluses. Melnyk said oil and gas, which have historically accounted for roughly 30 to 50 percent of Russia’s federal budget and financed a large share of the war, fell by at least a quarter last year. He warned that 2026 was likely to bring another year of weak budget income, citing expectations of lower Brent prices and continued weakness in Urals crude. He added that further pressure came from new sanctions imposed by the United States last October against Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies. “Moscow was forced to agree to ever-larger discounts on oil, sometimes to more than $30 per barrel,” he said. Following those sanctions, he said, Russia’s oil and gas revenues in December 2025 fell by almost 50 percent compared with the previous year. He acknowledged that the shadow fleet had helped Russia continue earning export income, but said overall revenue declines continued and would likely deepen as more vessels were seized or sanctioned. Melnyk also pointed to pressure on the monetary side, saying the Russian Central Bank had been forced to raise interest rates above 20 percent to curb inflation. “This reduced corporate profits as businesses stopped investing. Production in some industries fell sharply and corporate debt rose rapidly,” he said. He said economists were warning of the potential for a banking crisis by November 2026 because of rapid corporate lending growth in the first three years of the war. Russian bankers themselves, he added, had sounded the alarm over problem loans, with some saying many companies were already in a pre-default state. Melnyk said Russia’s reserves looked substantial on paper but were strategically fragile because a large share remained frozen in Western jurisdictions and much of the accessible portion was held in gold, which is difficult to monetize at scale under sanctions. He added that Russia’s National Wealth Fund, its real fiscal buffer, had been drawn down from $145 billion before the war to $35 billion by mid-2025. “Ongoing budget deficits of roughly 3-4% of GDP, driven by military spending and weaker energy revenues, mean the fund is being drawn down to plug gaps rather than invest, with credible projections that it could be exhausted in 2026 if conditions persist,” he said. Melnyk said the war had also produced a major demographic shock for Russia. “Since Putin began his war in February 2022, there have been over 1.2 million Russian casualties killed or wounded,” he said. He said Russia lost an average of 1,200 soldiers a day last year – 50 an hour, or nearly one per minute. “So during this emergency meeting of the Security Council, most probably around 100 Russian soldiers will have lost their lives,” he said. According to Melnyk, roughly 70 percent of Russian casualties are men aged 20 to 39 – the country’s core labor and fertility cohort. At the same time, he said, around 900,000 young, educated Russians have emigrated since 2022, taking with them some of the country’s most productive workers and taxpayers. “As a result, Russia entered 2026 with an estimated labor shortage of 6.5 million workers projected to widen to 11 million by 2030,” he said. It is Russia that finds itself in a Zugzwang Melnyk said these military, economic and demographic trends are producing a systemic effect that makes it increasingly difficult for Russia to finance the war without imposing severe economic pain at home. “Sustaining such a protracted, resource-intensive conflict requires consistent, robust revenue streams, and current trends show that these streams are on the verge of collapse in 2026,” he said. He argued that this is exactly why Moscow is issuing ultimatums and trying to frighten the international community with threats involving Oreshnik and other supposed wonder weapons. “So it is precisely this catastrophic state of Russia’s economy that is driving Moscow to issue ultimatums and use areshniks and other ghosts to coerce the international community into accepting its terms for ending the war,” he said. “It is Russia that finds itself in a Zugzwang.” The medicine is working – it is the dose that should be increased Melnyk said Ukraine remained committed to a comprehensive, just and lasting peace based on international law and the principles of the UN Charter. “Ukraine remains fully committed to the peace process initiated by US President Donald Trump,” he said. He praised the mediation efforts of the United States and the active diplomacy of European and other partners, saying the past weeks had been marked by intense shuttle diplomacy in Florida and Paris, with the personal involvement of President Volodymyr Zelensky. “What we see, though, is that Russia deliberately derailing these peaceful initiatives,” he said. He then appealed directly to Ukraine’s allies and partners, urging them to urgently transfer all available air defense systems and missiles from stockpiles to help protect civilians and energy infrastructure. “We also need long-range weapons to neutralize future attacks,” he said. Melnyk called for additional sanctions and greater economic pressure on Russia, including tougher measures against the shadow fleet, further limits on energy revenues and tighter restrictions on Moscow’s ability to acquire critical components for weapons production. He also addressed UN member states that have remained neutral and argue that sanctions are ineffective or unacceptable. “This is a wrong approach. They are highly effective, despite their implementation. The medicine is working, it is the dose that should be increased,” he said. “As long as Russia keeps abusing its veto power, blocking the Security Council, coordinated sanctions are the only way to push Moscow towards peace.” Melnyk closed by comparing today’s Russia to the Soviet Union in its final years of decline. “Russia resembles the Soviet Union in its final years of decline, before it imploded. It is not an expanding superpower, but a rigid, overextended system burdened by unbearable military expenditures and internal decay,” he said. “No one expected the USSR to crumble overnight, yet it happened. The historic parallels with present-day Russia are strikingly similar.” “Today’s Russia is like a colossus with feet of clay and it is only a matter of time before this entire house of cards collapses,” he said. Melnyk ended with a direct message in Russian, saying he was doing so because Moscow falsely claims the language is prohibited or discriminated against in Ukraine. “So our message to Russia is very simple, and I will put it in Russian language, since you have claimed that this language is being prohibited or discriminated in Ukraine,” he said. “This is it guys, we’re here, let’s dry our oars. The game is over for you, very soon, I think.” Sevinj Osmanqizi is a journalist covering US foreign policy, security, and geopolitics, with a focus on the broader post-Soviet space. She reports on Washington’s decision-making and its implications for Ukraine and regional stability.