Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz and France’s President Emmanuel Macron warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of a possible betrayal of Europe and Ukraine by the United States, the German weekly Der Spiegel reports.
In a confidential phone call that included several other European politicians, they voiced deep distrust toward White House representatives conducting talks with Russia and Ukraine, the outlet wrote Thursday, December 4, citing an English-language transcript of the conversation in its possession.
Macron warned of pressure on Kyiv over territorial issues without clarity on security guarantees, the report notes.
Zelensky faces “great danger,” the French leader said on December 1.
Merz, for his part, urged Zelensky to be “extremely cautious in the coming days.”
“They’re playing games with you and with us,” Der Spiegel quotes him as saying, suggesting he was referring to US special envoy Stephen Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on December 2.
Finland’s President Alexander Stubb also warned of the danger posed by the American negotiators.
“We must not leave Ukraine and Volodymyr (Zelensky) one-on-one with these guys,” the German outlet quotes Stubb as saying. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte backed that position and called for protecting Zelensky.
According to Der Spiegel, the call also included Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni; the prime ministers of Poland, Denmark and Norway — Donald Tusk, Mette Frederiksen and Jonas Gahr Støre — as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa.
Publicly, European leaders speak positively about Trump’s latest peace initiative, the outlet adds, but the sharp remarks in the transcript reveal deep mistrust from Merz, Macron and others toward the two confidants of the American president who are negotiating on his behalf over potential settlement terms.
The initial American plan to end the war in Ukraine, which surfaced in November, ran to 28 points and envisioned that Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions would be recognized de facto as Russian — including by the United States — while Kherson and Zaporizhzhia would be split along the current front line.
The plan also called for Ukraine to withdraw forces from the part of Donetsk region controlled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. After talks between US and Ukrainian delegations, the plan was revised to reflect the interests of Kyiv and the EU.
In late November, Witkoff and Kushner held talks in Florida with Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, and on December 2 met with Putin in Moscow. No compromise was reached after several hours of discussion, the Kremlin said.
Trump called the negotiators’ meeting in Moscow “rather successful.”
Witkoff and Kushner came away with the “firm impression” that Putin “wants to make a deal,” “end the war” and “return to a more normal life,” the president said.
