There is a “Russian trace” in the blocking of border crossings on the border between Poland and Ukraine by Polish farmers. The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry Dmitry Kuleba expressed this opinion at the conference “Ukraine. 2024″ February 25.
“What is happening in Poland is an obvious Russian trace. And the goal is also very simple – to play on the situation in order to split [Украину и Польшу]”, Kuleba said.
The head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry sees two ways to correct the current situation: maintaining unity with allies and working for results every day. He also believes that Ukraine will be helped by weapons arriving every day, new sanctions packages and the transfer of Russian frozen assets.
Earlier that day, the country's Minister of Development of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure, Alexander Kubrakov, said that unknown persons dumped 160 tons of Ukrainian grain, which was transported in sealed wagons to the port of Gdansk. He noted that this is already the fourth case of “impunity and irresponsibility.”
The first such incident with Ukrainian products occurred on February 11. Then in Dorohusk, protesting farmers poured grain from Ukraine onto the road. Then, 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.
The chairman of the Polish opposition party Law and Justice (PiS), Jaroslaw Kaczynski, said on February 22 that it is very important not to ruin Poland’s agriculture because of Ukraine’s problems. He believes that Warsaw and Kyiv need a special agreement on agricultural issues.
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. Due to the protests at the border, huge queues of trucks arose and interruptions began in the delivery of some goods to Ukraine.
On May 2, 2023, the European Commission banned the export of Ukrainian grain to five Eastern European countries. On September 15 of the same year, the EC lifted restrictions on the import of four types of agricultural products from Ukraine, but Poland extended the import ban unilaterally.
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