Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that peace talks with Ukraine would continue, while warning there was a "real" danger of a World War III.
Speaking to Russian news agencies and quoted by AFP, the Russian Minister criticized Kyiv's approach to the talks, adding, "Good will has its limits. But if it isn't reciprocal, that doesn't help the negotiation process."
"But we are continuing to engage in negotiations with the team delegated by (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy, and these contacts will go on," added Lavrov.
At the same time, he accused Zelenskyy, a former actor, of "pretending" to negotiate.
"He's a good actor. If you watch attentively and read attentively what he says, you'll find a thousand contradictions," charged Lavrov.
Given the current tensions, Lavrov said the danger of a World War III was "real".
"The danger is serious, it is real, you can't underestimate it," he warned.
Last week, Zelenskyy said that Russian forces had begun a new offensive in eastern Ukraine.
“We can now say that Russian forces have started the battle of the Donbas, for which they have long prepared,” he said in a video address.
“No matter how many soldiers are drawn there, we will defend ourselves. We will fight. We will not give up anything Ukrainian,” he stated.
Meanwhile, satellite footage released last Thursday shows the expansion of a mass grave site in a town close to the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.
Maxar Technologies released photos showing a mass grave site in Manhush, Ukraine, which is situated more than 10 miles from Mariupol. Maxar noted that the bodies of the dead from Mariupol were being taken by Russian soldiers to this area.
The photos showing the graves in Mariupol came several weeks after hundreds of people were buried in mass graves in Bucha, in one of the most well-documented sites of devastation in Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.