"The Steinmeier/Putin Formula" now hangs like an albatross around Zelensky's neck.

"Zelensky and his team .... have openly said they do not need journalists in their efforts to communicate with the public, opting instead for social media and slickly produced “interviews” carried out in-house." (Ian Bateson :The Atlantic : 25 September 2019) (my emphasis)

But, like that fateful July 25 phone call with Trump, the "mysterious Steinmeier [read: Putin] Formula" now hangs like an albatross around Zelensky's neck.

No slickly produced “interviews” carried out in-house by Zelensky's team can stem the growing tide of a Maidan II in the making.

Zelensky now has to face the public.

As reported by the Press Association,

"Thousands of people took to the streets of Ukraine’s capital on Sunday to protest against the president’s plan to hold a local election in the country’s rebel-held east."
...
About 15,000 people, including veterans of fighting in the east, gathered on the Maidan, the main square in central Kiev, holding placards saying “Shame!” and “No to capitulation!”

“One man can rob us of our country with his ill-considered steps.”
...
“Ukraine has been at war for five years, and I lost several of my friends, and they are now telling us that all of it was in vain,” soldier Ihor Roshchenko said. (Oxford Times : 6 October 2019) (my emphasis)

Anna Steshenko also reports that,

"After the opposition and social networks went ballistic over the Ukrainian leadership's consent to the so-called "Steinmeier's formula", Volodymyr Zelenskyy rushed to parliament.
...
At a closed-door  meeting between Zelensky and opposition members of the Rada, Taras Batenko said that,
 
"My main impression is that the president was clearly nervous. I would even say he was more nervous than we would have thought. The meeting was very emotional. The president's first message was that nothing awful happened in Minsk, nothing will happen in the future without parliament, consultations, and joint drafting of a bill on special status of Luhansk and Donetsk regions. So he promised us. It was initially planned that we would talk for 20 minutes at most but it took almost an hour longer." (LB UA : 2 October 2019) (my emphasis)

Steshenko further reports that,

"According to the source, Zelenskyy showed a copy of the letter outlining "Steinmeier's [Putin's] formula".

"The text is identical to the one which was shared on the Internet. We asked the president very many questions: about the border, disengagement, conditions of holding elections in the occupied territories. As a result, he did not persuade me, for instance. Now there are more questions than before. His answers were as ambiguous as at the president's briefing yesterday," a faction head present at the meeting said. (ibid Steshenko)

If Zelensky is willing to adopt the non-existent "Steinmeier/Putin Formula" for the Donbas, what "formula" is he going to pull out of his hat for the return of Crimea to Ukraine?

Now recall that, as reported by UNIAN,

 "Former member of the Russian State Duma Ilya Ponomarev (right) has said Ukraine will get Crimea back only "over Mr. Putin's dead body." (UNIAN : 11 July 2019) (my emphasis)


Let us also recall that, as Siobhan Morrin (left) reported,

"At least one topic of discussion appears off the table for President Donald Trump's upcoming [Helsinki] summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin: Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters Monday that the status of Crimea "can not and will never be on the agenda because it is an inseparable part of Russia," according to Agence France-Presse. (Time : 2 July, 2018) (my emphasis)

After all, was it not Trump, himself, who stated that,

"I'm going to take a look at it," Trump said in an interview broadcast on July 31 on the U.S. television program This Week. "But you know, the people of Crimea, from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were. And you have to look at that, also." (RFERL : 1 August 2016) (my emphasis)

Which rather poses an interesting question viz.

"If, in the mind of Putin, Crimea will always remain a part of Russia, irrespective or not of his demise, will Zelensky's proposal of a new Minsk summit revolve primarily around the ceasing of hostilities in the Donbas, and the return of the Donbas under Ukraine's control?"

And so it is.

Crimea is the one issue that Zelensky rarely wishes to approach, unlike his Chief of General Staff who,

"The newly-appointed chief of Ukraine’s General Staff, Ruslan Khomchak, appointed (left) by President Vladimir Zelensky two days ago, believes that Kiev had lost Crimea long before 2014.
...
[He reminisced that] "I bought a voucher to a health resort in Alupka," Khomchak said. "When the holiday was over, I told myself I would never go there again, because what I’d seen was really shocking. It was a sad ruin of what was left of the Soviet Union… I kept asking myself: ‘Is this Ukraine?’" (Tass : 24 May, 2019) (my emphasis)"

So even Zelensky's new Chief of General Staff has intimated that Ukraine's Crimea was lost to Russia long before 2014.

I think that the people of Ukraine ought to know whether, regarding Crimea, Zelensky agrees with his Chief of General Staff or not.

(to be continued)