BERLIN (Reuters) – The French President and German Chancellor have voiced skepticism over the direction that U.S. efforts to negotiate a peace between Ukraine and Russia are taking, German magazine Spiegel cited a transcript of a confidential call as showing.
In a report on Thursday, Spiegel said that in the call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders, France’s Emmanuel Macron warned that the United States could insist that Ukraine makes territorial concessions to Russia without guarantees to prevent future Russian aggression.
“There is a chance that the U.S. will betray Ukraine on territory without clarity on security guarantees,” he said, according to the magazine.
In the call that took place on Monday, Germany’s Friedrich Merz warned Zelenskiy that U.S. negotiators are “playing games” and that he should be “very careful” over the next few days, the Spiegel report said.
Berlin declined to comment, while the French President’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The President did not express himself in these words,” Spiegel quoted the Élysée as saying.
When asked to comment, French Foreign Ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux told reporters at a briefing: “I don’t see myself commenting on alleged leaks. There can be no doubt about our support for Ukraine and the intensity of our exchanges with the American side.”
European leaders on Monday rallied to show support for Zelenskiy after U.S.-Ukrainian talks to revise a peace proposal that initially favoured Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin received U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the Kremlin on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the path ahead for peace talks was unclear after what he called “reasonably good” talks between his envoys and Putin.
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke in Berlin and Gabriel Stargardter and Dominique Vidalon in Paris; Writing by Ludwig Burger, editing by Kirsti Knolle and Philippa Fletcher)