UN chief Antonio Guterres will visit Moscow on Tuesday for peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
UN spokeswoman Eri Kaneko said Putin will host a reception in Moscow, Mr Guterres will hold a “working meeting and lunch” with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to “further discussions” on halting Europe’s worst war in decades.
He will discuss “what steps can be taken right now in order to silence the guns, in order to help the people and in order to allow the people who need to get out to get out and have safe passage”, Ms Kaneko told.
The UN has been largely sidelined from the crisis since Mr Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24. The Russian leader has not taken Mr Guterres’s phone calls since the UN chief said the unprovoked invasion violated the UN charter.
Mr . Guterres delivered a statement in front of a UN peace sculpture, calling for the rival armies to lay down their guns over the Orthodox faith’s Easter holiday for a four-day truce beginning on Thursday.
His request gained little traction. Russian officials within hours proclaimed they had fully conquered the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol and later said they planned to seize much of southern and eastern Ukraine.
UN efforts to open humanitarian corridors and to help civilians leave bombed-out Ukrainian cities have made little progress. UN officials say Moscow has not prioritised their overtures towards peace.
