Paris – Speaking at his annual conference at the Elysee Palace, French President Francois Hollande announced that he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would arrive in Moscow on Feb. 6 to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine.
Prior to that, the French and German leaders plan to visit Kyiv on Feb. 5.
“Angela Merkel and I will travel to Kyiv in the afternoon today,” Hollande said.
For its part, Ukraine’s weekly Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Mirror Weekly), reported, citing a source in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, that the German chancellor’s foreign and security policy advisor Christoph Heusgen and a group of German diplomats, as well as the French president’s diplomatic advisor Jacques Audibert, accompanied by French Foreign Ministry officials, had arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday. They are laying the groundwork for the German and French leaders’ visit to the Ukrainian capital.
However, the source assessed the chance of a four-party meeting between Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, Merkel, Hollande and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is also in Kyiv, as unlikely.
Poroshenko will meet with Kerry separately and then hold a meeting with Merkel and Hollande, the source said.
The weekly also learned that the possibility of holding a meeting in Munich in a format similar to the Geneva one (the U.S., Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia) was being considered as well. Furthermore, a meeting of Merkel, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Poroshenko is also expected to take place on the sidelines of the Feb. 6-8 Munich Security Conference.
