There’s much discussion – and fear – in Ukraine and the Ukrainian diaspora about the so-called Steinmeier formula and its risks for Ukraine. On the right side of this page are the reactions of our major diaspora bodies, the Ukrainian World Congress, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, to the news that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had accepted the formula.
Ukraine signed a document agreeing to the Steinmeier formula on October 1 along with Russia, the “people’s republics” of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Significantly, it was Russia – the aggressor in this war – that insisted the formula had to be accepted as a precondition to the resumption of talks among the Normandy Four, i.e., Ukraine, Germany, France and Russia, for negotiations toward peace in Ukraine’s east.