Melnyk calls on partners to increase air defense aid to Ukraine tenfold

Ukraine’s permanent representative to the UN Andrii Melnyk called on western partners to increase air defense assistance to Ukraine at least tenfold in response to intensifying Russian air attacks.

Speaking at the UN Security Council meeting, Melnyk said "the alarming new scale of Russia’s air terror demands a response of an entirely different scale."

"We need to better protect the skies over our cities. We need to better protect and save the lives of civilians," the diplomat said.

Ukraine’s permanent representative also called on UN member states to increase sanctions pressure on Russia and cut off the sources of funding for the Russian war machine.

Melnyk also said the UN Security Council must adopt a resolution on an "immediate and unconditional ceasefire" and the release of prisoners of war and civilians on an all-for-all basis.

He also once again called for a mechanism to strip Russia of its permanent UN Security Council membership.

According to the diplomat, Ukraine’s strikes on Russian military targets are undermining Russia’s ability to sustain the war.

As reported, Ukraine initiated an emergency UN Security Council meeting and a joint meeting of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation and the OSCE Permanent Council following Russia’s massive attack on the night of May 24, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said.

Russia carried out its largest ever missile attack on Ukraine on the night of May 23-24, killing four civilians and wounding over 100. In Kyiv alone, two people were killed, 91 were wounded and around 300 facilities were damaged, half of them residential buildings. The enemy launched a massive combined strike on Ukraine using attack UAVs and air-, sea- and ground-launched missiles. Russian forces were reported to have used Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missiles in particular.