United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to meet his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock in Berlin Thursday, amid diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions with Russia over Ukraine. Prior to her meeting with Blinken on Thursday, Baerbock is scheduled to hold talks with her counterparts from France and Britain.

On Friday, the top U.S. diplomat is scheduled to visit Geneva, where he will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Blinken arrived in Europe on Wednesday amid efforts to address spiralling tensions with Russia over the Ukraine conflict.

In Kyiv, he met Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He reiterated the U.S.' threat to impose sanctions on Russia in case of invasion and promised support to Ukraine.

The U.S. and its NATO partners are riled up by the deployment of around 100,000 Russian soldiers on its border with Ukraine. They anticipate that Russia could be planning to invade Ukraine. However, Moscow has argued that these are its troops on its own territory.