Two pressures on Kyiv in early October 2019

What did Ukraine's president face in the opening days of October 2019? On 3 October 2019 the answer was two separate pressures, one over the war in Donbas and one over a political scandal in Washington, and both involved Volodymyr Zelensky.

A diplomatic step on Donbas

On 1 October 2019, Ukraine agreed to the "Steinmeier formula", a proposal aimed at granting a special self-governing status to the Donbas and organising elections validated by the OSCE and held according to Ukrainian law. Zelensky, as president, replied to a letter from Martin Sajdik, stating that Ukraine was agreeing the text of the formula, which provides special status for "separate territories" of Donbas.

The step belonged to the Minsk process, the set of international agreements that sought to end the Donbas war. That process involved the Trilateral Contact Group of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, with France and Germany mediating in the Normandy Format.

A scandal that reached Kyiv

At the same time, the US impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump was drawing in Ukraine. The scandal arose from Trump's attempts to press Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden. It centred on a phone call between Trump and Zelensky on 25 July 2019.

On 1 October 2019, Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani hired Jon Sale, a Watergate prosecutor, to represent him in the inquiry. On 2 October 2019, the office of Representative Adam Schiff said that the whistleblower who had complained about the call had sought guidance from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence before filing, while denying that the office saw the complaint in advance.

Then, on 3 October 2019, The New York Times, citing sources, reported an allegation that two American diplomats had presented a statement for Zelensky to sign. In it, Ukraine would commit to investigating Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

Why the overlap mattered

The two threads were distinct: one concerned Ukraine's approach to settling the war in the east, the other concerned how Kyiv was being drawn into US domestic politics. What they shared was the central figure. Within a few days, Zelensky had committed to a formula tied to the Minsk framework, while reports emerged that Ukraine's president had been asked to sign a statement about investigating a US political figure.

For Ukraine's government, the early October 2019 picture was one of external actors, in Berlin, Minsk and Washington, shaping the agenda for its president at the same moment. The allegation published on 3 October 2019 added a further dimension to a scandal that was already the subject of an impeachment inquiry.