PARIS (Reuters) -The French and Russian foreign ministers will meet in Paris on Friday to discuss the crisis in Ukraine, the French foreign ministry said on Monday, provided no Russian invasion of Ukraine has taken place in the meantime.
Russia’s Sergei Lavrov has accepted the invitation from French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, the ministry said in a statement.
The meeting will involve “preparatory consultations” ahead of a possible summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, it said.
Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said Biden and Putin had agreed in principle to a summit over Ukraine, offering a possible path out of one of the most dangerous European crises in decades.
Russia’s military said on Monday that Ukrainian saboteurs had tried to enter Russian territory in armed vehicles, an accusation dismissed as “fake news” by Kyiv amid Western accusations that Moscow could fabricate a pretext to invade.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Dominique VidalonEditing by Gareth Jones)
