Macron risks row with Trump after saying US will ‘betray Ukraine’ in leaked call with EU leaders

“There is a possibility that the US will betray Ukraine on the issue of territory without clarity on security guarantees,” Macron is said to have told fellow European leaders, including German chancellor Friedrich Merz and Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte.

The transcript of the call was leaked amid continuing efforts by the Trump administration to pressure Moscow and Kyiv into agreeing a peace deal. A 28-point plan proposed by the US late last month demanded heavy territorial and military concessions from Ukraine and caused consternation in Europe.

It laid bare the rift between Washington and Europe on how to bring an end to the near four-year-old conflict. Despite a flurry of diplomatic activity in the past fortnight with talks between all three parties, there has been no breakthrough on key issues. Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner held five hours of talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this week, with little progress made.

The French president was not the only leader to issue a thinly-veiled criticism of Trump and his negotiating team on the call.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz said Volodymyr Zelensky had to be “extremely careful” in the coming days. In comments that appear to refer to Witkoff and Kushner, Merz said: "They are playing games, both with you and with us.”

Finnish president Alexander Stubb, who has a warm relationship with Trump, said: “We must not leave Ukraine and Volodymyr alone with these guys.” Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte concurred, saying: “I agree with Alexander, we must protect Volodymyr.”

The call also included Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk, Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen, Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre, EU Council president Antonio Costa and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

The call was held on Monday, one day before Witkoff and Kushner travelled to Moscow to meet Putin, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov and Moscow envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

The Kremlin meeting was the culmination of two weeks of negotiations and wrangling between delegations from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow as the Trump administration attempted to force a breakthrough - one of the US president’s key aims upon his re-election.

Putin said the talks were "necessary" and "useful" but also "difficult work," with some of the proposals deemed unacceptable by the Kremlin.

Witkoff, Kushner and Ukraine's lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, are set to hold talks Miami on Thursday, according to a senior Trump administration official.

Trump said that Witkoff and Kushner’s impression was “very strongly that [Putin would] like to make a deal.

European leaders on the call on Monday had still hoped to organise a meeting with Witkoff and Kushner on Wednesday, and Merz offered to ask Trump to send Witkoff to Brussels, according to the report.

They discussed whether heads of state should be present at the meeting, and also the potential location. Meloni was said to be against the idea, while Stubb was in favour arguing that “at the moment we're out, but we have to get in”.

Witkoff flew straight back to the US from Moscow on Wednesday and did not meet with European allies.

Mr Merz also discussed the issue of frozen Russian assets in the Monday call, warning that the US must be clear that the issue was Europe’s to deal with alone.

On Wednesday, the European Commission proposed a plan which would see €90bn (£79bn) of Russia assets frozen in the continent used to fund Ukraine’s war - a move which former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday said would be “tantamount to a casus belli [an act that justifies war]”.

Europe could not "leave the decision to other, non-European states regarding what happens to the financial resources of an aggressor that have been legally frozen within the jurisdiction of our rule of law and in our own currency”, Merz told European allies.