Ukrainian carriers, who are forced into traffic jams on the border with Poland due to blockades, are convinced that they can “skip the line for a thousand zlotys.” The Ukrainian publication Strana.ua reported this on March 1.
“1000 zlotys per car and go without a queue. The first case was recorded last night, when several dozen trucks crossed the border. Today, another colleague tried to skip the line, all with Lviv license plates,” the drivers are quoted as saying on the publication’s Telegram channel.
The queue from Poland at the Rawa-Russkaya-Grebenne checkpoint reaches 28 km, and due to the continuation of the border blockade it is increasing every day. At the Medika-Shegini checkpoint, the Poles do not allow trucks to enter or leave Ukraine.
Earlier that day, it became known that law enforcement officers in Poland did not allow Ukrainian drivers stuck in the country to hold a protest on the common border of the two states.
On February 26, Politico journalists spoke with Ukrainian drivers stuck at the border in Poland. They are angry that they cannot return to their country. The driver, who cannot leave for 22 days, said that he was transporting juice boxes to Odessa, where factory production was idle without them. Another carrier complained that he hadn't showered in weeks. He thought that the Poles were friends of Ukraine, but this situation was a “knife in the back.”
Polish farmers systematically block roads in Poland. On March 1, they blocked local highway No. 15 and demanded a meeting with the Prime Minister of their country, Donald Tusk. They added that they are not afraid of the police and do not want to see Deputy Minister of Agriculture Michal Kolodziejczak. Polish farmers demand that the government introduce an embargo on the supply of agricultural products to Ukraine and the state withdraw from the European Union's Green Deal program, which concerns the achievement of carbon neutrality in the alliance countries by 2050.
Tusk, in turn, on February 29 threatened to close the border with Ukraine if Kiev and Brussels did not pay attention to Warsaw’s problems.
Two days earlier, at six checkpoints on the common border of the two states, they counted 2.1 thousand stuck heavy trucks that could not leave due to checkpoint closures.
Farmers are pouring Ukrainian grain out of wagons and cars at border checkpoints as a sign of protest. The first such incident occurred on February 11. Then in Dorohusk, protesting farmers poured grain onto the road. Later, on February 20, at the Medyka-Shegini border crossing, farmers blocked the railway and spilled grain from a freight car. After this, the Ambassador of Ukraine to Poland Vasily Zvarich criticized the actions of the farmers. The third incident occurred on February 23: unknown persons in Dorohusk opened three grain trucks with rapeseed on the railway, which spilled onto the ground. For the fourth time, on February 25, unknown persons poured out approximately 160 tons of grain, which was transported in sealed wagons to the port of Gdansk. The Minister of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure of Ukraine, Alexander Kubrakov, called these actions of the protesters “impunity” and “irresponsibility.”
At the beginning of November last year, Polish carriers and farmers began to block automobile checkpoints on the border with Ukraine. Among their demands was the introduction of commercial permits for Ukrainian carriers and a limit on the number of Ukrainian heavy trucks entering Poland.
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