France says Biden and Putin agree to meet in ‘principle,’ but obstacles remain.

PARIS — President Biden and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia have “accepted the principle” of a summit meeting to be held some time after Thursday, the French presidency said in a statement on Monday.

The meeting, “to be held on the condition that Russia does not invade Ukraine,” would address “security and strategic stability in Europe.” The groundwork for a summit would be prepared in a planned meeting on Thursday between Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, the statement said. Mr. Lavrov confirmed his willingness to attend that meeting.

The French statement offered hope that Mr. Putin has decided against an invasion, at least for now. However, U.S. officials are far from certain that Thursday’s meeting between the nations’ top diplomats will happen.

Mr. Biden said on Friday that Russian forces intended to attack Ukraine within days, and that U.S. officials believed the target would be the capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million people.

President Emmanuel Macron of France has been consistently more cautious on the possibility of an invasion and has pressed for dialogue with Russia, which Mr. Macron views as a European power that needs to be integrated into a new security arrangement for the continent that reflects the Cold War’s end.

The agreement on the principle of a meeting followed two calls by Mr. Macron to Mr. Putin on Sunday, and one to Mr. Biden. Mr. Macron has been the chief European interlocutor with Mr. Putin, having begun a dialogue with him in 2019, the same year the French leader alarmed allies by saying NATO was suffering from a “brain death.”

Officials close to Mr. Macron said he had worked to get the American and Russian leaders to agree on the principle of holding a meeting, and that the agreement indicated they both believed in the possibility of a diplomatic solution to the crisis precipitated by the buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. But the officials said that the scope and the content of the meeting still needed to be worked out.

Mr. Macron faces a presidential election on April 10 for which he has not yet formally declared himself a candidate, choosing to dedicate himself to shuttle diplomacy in the Ukraine crisis — an undertaking that seems certain to enhance his stature if he is able to avert war.