UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday denounced Russia’s smooth offensive in eastern Ukraine and call for a four-day truce to mark Orthodox Holy Week.

Russia launched dozens of airstrikes across Japanese Ukraine, as an ultra-modern phase of the bloody warfare opened with stopping raging in the Donbas region.

“Instead of a party of new lifestyles, this Easter coincides with a Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine,” Guterres advised newshounds.

“The intense concentration of forces and firepower makes this battle inevitably more violent, bloody, and destructive,” he said, calling for a “humanitarian pause” from Holy Thursday until Easter Sunday on April 24.

“Easter is a season for renewal, resurrection, and hope… But this year, Holy Week is being observed under the cloud of war.

“Hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance,” the United Nations chief said.

Ukraine’s armed forces confirmed fighting had increased throughout the east after President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had kicked off the widely anticipated offensive in the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland.

Russia’s military campaign refocused on Donbas, which pro-Moscow separatists have partly controlled since 2014, after its efforts to capture the capital Kyiv were thwarted.

Guterres said a truce would allow safe passage for civilians to flee the eastern war zone, and for humanitarian aid to be delivered to the hardest-hit areas — in particular the cities of Mariupol, Kherson, Donetsk, and Lugansk.

The UN Security Council also met again Tuesday to discuss the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and neighboring countries.

More than 12 million humans have fled their homes because the invasion began on February 24, the pinnacle of the International Organization for Migration Antonio Vitorino instructed the council.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, who became in New York, branded the Russian offensive “madness” and called for an instantaneous ceasefire.