Andrii Melnyk

Andriy Yaroslavovych Melnyk (, born 7 September 1975) is a Ukrainian diplomat who has served as the Ukrainian ambassador to Brazil since June 2023. He previously held the position of deputy minister of foreign affairs from November 2022 to July 2023 and Ukrainian ambassador to Germany from December 2014 to October 2022.

He is a Doctor of Law.

In 1999–2003, Melnyk was second and then the first secretary of the Embassy of Ukraine in Austria; he left this Embassy in 2003.

Between 2005 and 2007, Andriy Melnyk worked as an advisor to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. Secretary of the Ukrainian part of the Advisory Committee of the Presidents of Ukraine and the Republic of Poland.

From 2007 till 2012, Melnyk was Consul of Ukraine in Hamburg. to 9 July 2022 He was sworn into office in Germany on January 12, 2015.

Between 2012 and 2014, Andriy Melnyk worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

On 19 December 2014, Melnyk was appointed a Ukrainian ambassador to Germany by a decree of president Petro Poroshenko. On 19 November, Melnyk was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine.

Since June 20, 2023, he has served as the Ukrainian ambassador to Brazil.

2022 invasion of Ukraine

Criticism of German government As ambassador to Germany Melnyk was vocal in his criticism of what he considered Germany's insufficient support of Ukraine following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Comments on Bandera On 29 June 2022 Andriy Melnyk gave an interview to Tilo Jung where he denied the interviewer's claim that Stepan Bandera's followers were "involved in the killing of 800,000 Jews" during World War II, to which Melnyk replied "there is no evidence that Bandera's troops killed hundreds of thousands of Jews. There is zero evidence." Melnyk called this claim a narrative pushed by Russia that is now being supported by Germany, Poland, and Israel. After an official protest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a statement on 1 July 2022 in which it was declared that this was Melnyk's private opinion. On 1 July 2022 the Embassy of Israel in Berlin published a statement on Melnyk's interview which criticized him for "a distortion of historical facts concerning the Holocaust." Felix Klein, the Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Anti-Semitism in Germany, reprimanded Melnyk and appealed to Ukraine to seek rapid admission to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental organization which is dedicated to the study of the Holocaust. Klein regretted that the Ukrainian government had so far been negative about an IHRA membership.

On 9 July 2022, just weeks after his controversial statements, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine announced that Melnyk had been dismissed from his position as ambassador to Germany. Melnyk was dismissed along with several other of Ukraine's ambassadors; president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that "this rotation is a normal part of diplomatic practice". It was expected that he would remain in office until the end of September 2022, after which he would move to Kyiv.

Spat with Elon Musk On 3 October 2022, Melnyk tweeted "Fuck off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk" in response to a proposal from Musk for Ukraine to give up Crimea and hold elections in Russian occupied territories. On October 12, Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov stressed how important Starlink from Musk's SpaceX was to Ukraine and Musk confirmed his support for Ukraine. On October 14 it surfaced that SpaceX had written the Pentagon that it could not indefinitely fund the operation of Starlink in Ukraine. In spite of having communicated this financing issue in September, Musk elaborated on the Starlink funding issue by retorting in reference to Melnyk "We’re just following his recommendation”. The day after, Musk tweeted that in spite of the cost, SpaceX would continue to fund the operation of Starlink in Ukraine.

Monographs Andriy Melnyk is the author of publications on international law, including several monographs. He was the first person to conduct significant research into the succession of Ukraine in relation to international treaties of the USSR in one such book.

Awards and ranks Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the first class (2012) Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (2016) Order of Merit of the II degree (21 August 2020)