Antonio Guterres
Antonio GuterresReuters

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced his arrival in Kyiv on Wednesday following talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin, AFP reported.

"I have arrived in Ukraine after visiting Moscow," he wrote on his official Twitter account as he landed ahead of talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"We will continue our work to expand humanitarian support and secure the evacuation of civilians from conflict zones. The sooner this war ends, the better -- for the sake of Ukraine, Russia, and the world," Guterres tweeted.

At the Moscow talks on Tuesday, Guterres repeated calls for both Russia and Ukraine to work together to set up "safe and effective" humanitarian corridors in war-torn Ukraine.

In turn, Putin told the UN chief he hoped that negotiations could end the conflict which saw Russian troops invading Ukraine on February 24.

Talks had been taking place in Turkey but stalled after the discovery of civilian bodies in areas near Kyiv previously occupied by Russian forces.

Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that peace talks with Ukraine would continue, while warning there was a "real" danger of a World War III.

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 Zelenskyy, and these contacts will go on," added Lavrov.

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.