Emmanuel Macron warned fellow European leaders that Donald Trump could ‘betray Ukraine’ by pushing Kyiv to surrender territory to Russia without any security guarantees, according to a leaked transcript of a high-level call. The French president is said to have told allies that Washington may try to force a carve-up of Ukraine to appease Vladimir Putin – a move that has already triggered alarm across Europe.
European leaders in a conference call this week voiced distrust of US efforts to negotiate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to German news weekly Der Spiegel, which said it had obtained written notes on the call.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Macron had expressed scepticism in the call Monday with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and others that US negotiators would safeguard Kyiv’s interests, the report said. The magazine quoted Macron as saying during the call that ‘there is a chance that the US will betray Ukraine on territory without clarity on security guarantees’. The French government did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Der Spiegel quoted the presidency as saying Macron ‘did not express himself in these terms’.
Reported Warning to Zelensky
According to the report, Merz warned Zelenskyy to be ‘very careful in the coming days’ and added that ‘they are playing games with both you and us’. The German chancellery said that ‘we cannot comment on individual media reports. Furthermore, we cannot, as a matter of principle, report on confidential conversations.’ Zelenskyy’s communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said in response to a question from reporters on the report that ‘we do not comment on provocations’.
According to Der Spiegel, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb also expressed distrust of US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who were sent to the Kremlin for negotiations earlier this week. ‘We cannot leave Ukraine and Volodymyr alone with these guys,’ Stubb said, according to Der Spiegel. His office also did not immediately reply to a request for comment. And NATO chief Mark Rutte agreed that ‘we must protect Volodymyr’, Der Spiegel said, citing what it said were notes on the call, not a verbatim transcript, and without naming the author of the notes. NATO has also been contacted for comment. Der Spiegel said Rutte’s office had declined comment.
Washington last month put forward an initial 28-point proposal to halt the war in Ukraine, drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies and criticised as too close a reflection of Moscow’s maximalist demands on Ukrainian territory. A flurry of diplomacy has followed, with US and Ukrainian negotiators holding talks in Geneva and Florida before Witkoff and Kushner headed to Moscow on Tuesday. Der Spiegel said two unnamed participants in the call on Monday had confirmed that the notes accurately reflected the content of the conversation, but that they could not confirm the quotes word for word as the leaders’ conservation was confidential. The tensions exposed during the confidential call were underscored within 24 hours as Donald Trump’s own peace effort ran into fresh trouble.
His envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – who had spent five hours in talks at the Kremlin on Tuesday – had been due to meet Zelenskyy in Brussels the following day, but the encounter was abruptly cancelled. A Kyiv Post correspondent reported that ‘the Brussels meeting is called off,’ with Zelenskyy returning to Ukraine instead. Neither side explained the decision, but the sudden change in schedule highlighted the uncertainty now surrounding Trump’s push for a negotiated end to the conflict.
Putin’s Warning to Europe
Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, issued a chilling warning to Europe on Tuesday, stating that Russia was ‘ready’ for conflict on the continent. He said that any assault would be so ferocious that there would be ‘nobody left to negotiate peace with’ once it was concluded. Hopes that the Ukraine war might end were buoyed last month when Trump unveiled a 28-point peace plan for Kyiv and Moscow, modeled on his Gaza deal.
However, skeptics warned that the plan’s failure to meet Putin’s maximalist demands, including recognition of annexed territories, demilitarization, and promises to hold elections within 100 days, would prevent a swift resolution.
Zelensky also rejected a revised 19-point proposal because, although it stripped back concessions to Moscow in the original draft, including dropping its NATO ambitions and relinquishing all of eastern Donbas, it still left sensitive issues unresolved. The plan required Kyiv to withdraw from parts of the Donetsk region it already controls, provided vague security guarantees without specifics on enforcement, and imposed a 25 per cent reduction in Ukraine’s military.
Amid Putin’s sabre-rattling, the Kremlin praised Trump on Wednesday for trying to broker peace, while admitting that differences remained between the two sides. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: ‘This is a normal process. It was the first time there was a direct exchange of opinions.’ He added that Russia had made clear the terms it found ‘unacceptable’. (Daily Mail)