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French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Friday (February 4th) that they will travel to Ukraine and Russia as diplomatic efforts are stepping up to mitigate a growing crisis in the region.
Leaders across Europe are stepping up their diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions after Moscow amassed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s borders.
Macron is expected to travel to Moscow and Kiev next week for mediation efforts, the Elysée Palace in Paris announced.
First, Macron will fly to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday (February 7th), and the next day, a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is on the agenda.
He had recently spoken to both on the phone several times. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will also travel to Kiev this Monday, following an earlier visit in mid-January.
She will meet with Zelensky and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, according to a spokesman for the Foreign Office in Berlin.
Scholz will travel to the region a week later.
He is scheduled to visit Moscow on February 15 to hold talks with Putin, the Kremlin said in a statement broadcast by the TASS news agency.
Scholz will attend the talks in Kiev on February 14 before leaving for Moscow the next day.
For Scholz and Putin, this will be the first face-to-face meeting since Scholz took over Germany in December.
Both Germany and France have mediated in the Ukraine conflict for years. Earlier, Scholz will visit Washington on Monday, where he plans to meet with US President Joe Biden.
Their talks are expected to focus on the crisis. Given the deployment of more than 100,000 Russian troops in the border area with Ukraine, there are fears that the Kremlin is planning an invasion of the neighboring country, a former Soviet republic.
Moscow denies this.
It is also thought possible that the Russian side wants to instill fear in order to persuade NATO to make concessions.
In addition, the leaders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are also expected in Berlin for talks on the crisis.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticized Western leaders, including Biden, for “failing to contribute to resolving” tensions between Ukraine and Russia.
“I can say that they are just ignoring the situation,” Erdogan said on Friday, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency, following his visit to Kiev.
“Before that, Merkel came out holding a key in her hands for a solution. “We do not have such a leader at the moment,” said the Turkish leader.
Erdogan reiterated that Turkey hopes to mediate between Kiev and Moscow after his scheduled meeting with Putin.
However, it was not immediately clear if and when the two leaders would meet.
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