To"protect" Zelenskyy from Witkoff and Kushner: Spiegel shows alleged transcript of call from Europeans

German magazine Spiegel said that it has an English-language transcript of the president Volodymyr Zelenskyy's call with European partners on December 1, in which the latter criticized the United States in the context of the negotiations. The Office of the Ukrainian president declined to comment.

According to Spiegel, European heads of state and government deeply distrust Washington in peace talks with Moscow and Kyiv, and German chancellor Friedrich Merz and the president of France Emmanuel Macron during a confidential call expressed a sharp warning that the United States could betray Ukraine and Europe. Zelenskyy's office told Ukrainian journalists that they "do not comment on fake news."

"There is a possibility that the United States will betray Ukraine on the issue of territory without providing clear security guarantees," Macron allegedly said, adding that there is a "great danger" for the Ukrainian president, as Moscow's demands for the surrender of territory are one of the most sensitive issues in the negotiations.

According to Spiegel's transcript, Merz said that Zelenskyy should be "extremely careful in the coming days."

"They are playing games with you and with us," the German chancellor allegedly said, probably referring to the US negotiators, the US president's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

As Spiegel points out, these and other statements from the transcript illustrate the deep distrust Europeans have for these two Trump confidants. The media outlet states that while the partners always publicly praise the new US initiative for a peace plan, the transcripts show that other leaders, in addition to Merz and Macron, distrust Witkoff and Kushner.

Yes, even the president of Finland Alexander Stubb, who is one of the few European leaders who has good relations with the US president, allegedly warned of the danger posed by this duo of negotiators: "We cannot leave Ukraine and Volodymyr alone with these guys."

At the same time, Spiegel says, the NATO secretary general shared the same opinion Mark Rutte, who also enjoys Trump's favor: "I agree with Alexander, we must protect Vladimir."

Stubb declined to comment, and Rutte did not respond to a media request.

According to Spiegel, the call also involved the prime ministers of Poland (Donald Tusk), Italy, (George Maloney), Denmark (Mette Frederiksen), Norway (Jonas Gahr Støre), as well as the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the head of the European Council António Costa.

The media outlet says that several unnamed call participants confirmed the conversation; two of them said that the content of the conversation was correctly reported, but refused to confirm individual quotes because it was a confidential communication. Zelenskyy's spokesman told Spiegel that he did not want to comment on the content of the conversation.

At the same time, the French leader's administration denied that Macron had spoken about the threat of betrayal by the Americans: "The president did not use such words. However, they refused to specify what exactly he said during the call, citing the confidentiality of the conversation.

The German Prime Minister's office said it did not want to comment on "circulated excerpts of the conversation." According to them, Merz has already "spoken in detail and publicly" about the conversation – the politician emphasized the importance of using frozen Russian assets and cooperation between Europe and the United States.

According to Spiegel, frozen assets were also a topic of the call: participants repeatedly emphasized that it was necessary to make it clear to the American side that the issue of these funds is the exclusive prerogative of the European Union.

The call took place the day after the Ukraine-U.S. talks in Miami, which were attended by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as Vitkoff and Kushner.

Among other things, according to Spiegel, during the call, some European leaders hoped to organize a meeting with the US president's special envoy and his son-in-law after their talks in Moscow on December 2. However, this did not happen, as after the meeting in Russia, Witkoff and Kushner returned directly to the United States.

• Following the talks in Florida on November 30, Secretary Rubio said that there is still "a lot of work to be done" on the peace plan, but positively assessed the meeting. The head of the Ukrainian delegation, Umerov, noted that Washington shares Kyiv's key goals.
• Already on December 2, Witkoff and Kushner spoke with dictator Putin for almost five hours in Moscow: as a result, the Kremlin said that there was no "compromise plan" regarding the end of the war.
• The next day, foreign minister Sybiha said that Ukraine had been in contact with the United States after their talks in Moscow – Washington is positive about the talks with Putin and invited a Ukrainian delegation to visit America in the near future.