Ukraine is “fighting for its homeland”, while russia is “burning its own population”, said Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the UN Andrii Melnyk at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday, April 20, Ukrinform reports.
Melnyk noted that russia loses on average 254 soldiers for every square kilometer of Ukrainian territory it manages to capture.
“If you multiply 6 thousand by 254 fallen soldiers for each square kilometer, then to capture the entire territory of the Donetsk oblast, putin would have to send at least another one and a half million soldiers to their deaths”, - Melnyk said.
According to him, this would mean more than doubling russia’s current losses, bringing the total to over 3 million.
“Even for putin, for whom the value of his own citizens’ lives seems to be less than a penny, such a figure would be catastrophic”, - the Ukrainian Permanent Representative emphasized.
He also stated that at the current pace of the war, an attempt to occupy all of Ukraine would require “more than 122 million lives of russian soldiers”.
“Given the tortoise-like pace of russia’s advance, this inglorious ‘victory’ would last about 183 years”, - Melnyk added.
He ironically called putin a “military genius”, who, according to him, “cannot fail to understand that his insane goal of capturing Ukraine will never be achieved by military means”.
Melnyk emphasized that russia is putting forward demands for the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the Donetsk oblast as a condition for negotiations, however “Ukraine rejects any kind of ultimatum”.
Russia is the largest country on the planet with an area of 17.1 million square kilometers. Therefore, 6 thousand square kilometers of the Donetsk oblast is only 0.03% of its territory, he said.
At the same time, moscow is trying to convince international mediators that peace supposedly depends on concessions from Ukraine.
“Does anyone really believe this fairy tale? We do not”, - the Ukrainian Permanent Representative concluded.