French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Moscow and Kiev to meet his counterparts early next week, his office said on Friday, in the highest profile effort by a Western leader to deescalate the Ukraine crisis. 

Macron will go to Russia on Monday to meet President Vladimir Putin and to Ukraine on Tuesday for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky.  

The French president, who has called for a deescalation in the crisis, has (over the last days) repeatedly held telephone talks with Putin and Zelensky as well as talking to U.S. President Joe Biden. 

His office had said late Thursday after Macron's latest talks with Putin and Zelensky that the discussions sought "to identify the elements that should lead to a deescalation".