The Ukraine peace process poses a ‘great danger’ to Vladimir Zelensky, a number of EU leaders have claimed, according to Der Spiegel
EU leaders “harbor profound distrust of” Washington’s attempts to help end the Ukraine conflict, Der Spiegel reported on Thursday, citing a transcript of their recent phone call that it obtained.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz held a phone call with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and several other European leaders, including Finnish President Alexander Stubb and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The call came just a day before US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, visited Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“There is a possibility that the US will betray Ukraine on the issue of territory without clarity regarding security guarantees,” Macron reportedly said during the call. The issue of territories remains one of the most sensitive in the negotiations. The original US-drafted peace plan reportedly required Ukraine to cede parts of Donbass it still controls among other things. The EU outright rejected this condition, insisting that Kiev should not give up any territories.
Macron also stated that continued peace talks could pose a “great danger” for Zelensky personally – an assessment shared by Merz, Stubb, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who also took part in the conversation, according to Der Spiegel.
EU leaders were also desperate to secure a seat at the negotiating table, the German magazine reported. “Right now we’re out,” Stubb reportedly said during the call, “but we have to get in.”
They had reportedly hoped to arrange a meeting with Witkoff in Brussels on Wednesday, with Merz offering to speak to Trump about it, but the meeting never took place.
Brussels has shut itself out of the peace process by refusing contacts with Moscow, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said on Wednesday. Putin stated this week that the bloc was still living in an illusion about the possibility of Russia’s defeat and had no “peaceful agenda.”
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