MOSCOW (Reuters) -Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday that he would be in touch with U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff about the purported leak of a phone conversation between the two men, which he called unacceptable.
Ushakov was asked by reporters if he would ask Witkoff about the leak when the American visits Moscow next week to meet President Vladimir Putin.
“About the leak? We will exchange opinions by phone,” he replied.
Bloomberg News earlier published the transcript of an October 14 telephone call in which Witkoff reportedly told Ushakov they should work together on a ceasefire plan for Ukraine and that Putin should raise it with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Ushakov told reporters that some of what was leaked was “fake” and he would not comment on the rest because the call was confidential. Leaking a discussion of a serious issue was “of course unacceptable”, he added.
Ushakov said earlier that the call was probably leaked in order to hinder the talks.
In an interview with Kommersant newspaper, Ushakov said that some of his conversations were conducted through encrypted government channels, which are rarely intercepted and leaked unless one of the parties deliberately intends to do so.
“There are certain conversations on WhatsApp that, generally speaking, someone might somehow be able to listen to,” Ushakov said. He ruled out the possibility that the leak could have come from the participants in the calls whose contents were leaked.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Mark Trevelyan and Gleb Bryanski; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Gareth Jones )
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