The Daily Populous Thursday December 4th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by politico.eu and submitted by HydrolicKrane

When asked about the report, an Elysée official, granted anonymity to adhere to standard professional protocol in France, stressed that Macron’s office released its own summary of the exchange “in which this word [betray] does not figure.” The official added that Macron’s position on peace talks is “no different in private” than what he states publicly.

A spokesperson for the French foreign ministry said: “Exchanges with our U.S. counterparts are particularly rich. You no doubt saw that the French president received the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the Elysée Palace Monday, and immediately afterwards he debriefed negotiators in Florida and of course President Donald Trump.”

Merz chimed in that Zelenskyy had to be “extremely careful in the coming days.”

“They are playing games, both with you and with us,” Merz said, seemingly referring to Washington’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner — the son-in-law of American President Donald Trump — who spent five hours locked in talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.

Merz’s spokesperson Stefan Kornelius told POLITICO: “As a matter of principle, I do not confirm or comment on snippets of conversation.”

Finland’s Stubb seemed to agree with Merz, according to the transcript. “We cannot leave Ukraine and Volodymyr alone with these guys,” he said, apparently referring to Witkoff and Kushner, which attracted agreement from Rutte.

SkunkMonkey on December 4th, 2025 at 15:01 UTC »

Trump should not be trusted. In fact, I'd like to see more world leaders call the fucker out on his increasing slide into fascism and war crimes.

gentleman_bronco on December 4th, 2025 at 12:42 UTC »

Is it because the Trump administration is openly betraying Ukraine?

Edit: because a whole lot of misinformation is being thrown at me, let's be clear:

The United States entered into a ten-year defensive agreement with Ukraine in 2024 and ratified through a bipartisan Congress. The agreement is for the United States to sell Ukraine defensive material to build military infrastructure, base building, and training in exchange for economic partnerships.

The United States does have a Defensive Agreement with Ukraine.

Edit 2: no, I'm not forgetting about the Budapest Memorandum. I am deciding to focus on a defensive agreement that was signed a year ago with bipartisan support. 1994 was 31 years ago and it's hard enough to convince people that this agreement was signed last year.

vreca_cementa on December 4th, 2025 at 12:37 UTC »

I am 100% convinced that Trump and Putin agreed to a trade in Anchorage.

Putin agreed to fuck off from Venezuela and leave it to the US, Trump in exchange agreed to stop helping Ukraine.