French, German leaders to visit Russia and Ukraine amid tension | Al Jazeera

The French president and the German chancellor will head to Moscow and Kyiv in the coming weeks, adding to diplomatic efforts to try to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from launching an invasion of Ukraine and find a way out of the growing tensions.

France’s Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to visit Moscow on Monday and Kyiv on Tuesday, while Germany’s Olaf Scholz will travel to Kyiv on February 14 and Moscow on February 15.

The high-level visits come as China has backed Russia’s demand that NATO be precluded from expanding to Ukraine, and after the United States accused the Kremlin on Thursday of an elaborate plot to fabricate an attack by Ukrainian forces that Russia could use as a pretext to take military action.

The US has not provided detailed information backing up the claims, which Moscow has vehemently denied.