German president says Kyiv did not want him to visit

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier poses for pictures with Polish President Andrzej Duda at Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, Poland April 12, 2022. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel

BERLIN (Reuters) - A planned visit to Kyiv by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was not welcomed by Ukraine, he said on Tuesday, following a report that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was critical of Steinmeier's historic advocacy of Western rapprochement with Russia.

Steinmeier had planned to visit Kyiv with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda and the presidents of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia "to send a strong signal of European solidarity with Ukraine there," he told journalists during a visit to Warsaw.