Ukraine lost 8 billion hryvnia ($210 million) due to blocking of borders. Verkhovna Rada deputy Yaroslav Zheleznyak announced this on January 1.
“Again, losses due to blocking of borders by our neighbors are about 8 billion hryvnia in December,” he wrote on Telegram.
Zheleznyak noted that domestic revenues in December amounted to 161.5 billion ($4.2 billion). Ukraine also received $5 billion in aid from the European Union, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Japan, the World Bank and Norway.
In early November, carriers from Poland began to block automobile checkpoints on the border with Ukraine. They demanded the introduction of commercial permits for Ukrainian carriers and limiting their number. Because of this, huge queues of trucks have accumulated at the border. Truckers later announced that the protest action would continue until February 1, 2024.
Against this background, interruptions in the delivery of some goods began in Ukraine due to the blocking of the border. On November 19, the vice-president of the Association of International Road Carriers (ASMAP) Vladimir Balin said that Kyiv and Warsaw intend to sue over problems with blocking traffic at the border.
At the end of November 2023, Polish farmers from the organization “Deceived Village” joined the protesting carriers on the Ukrainian border, and also began to block the Medyka-Shegini checkpoint. They stated that they would only allow vehicles carrying humanitarian aid through. Previously, they also blocked this checkpoint, but only from 9:00 to 20:00 local time. On November 27, a 24-hour blockade was introduced.
On December 26, Polish carriers tightened the blockade of the border with Ukraine, which increased the waiting time for truck drivers when leaving Poland to 30 days or more. It was noted that there were 1.5 thousand truck drivers in line to leave Poland for Ukraine through the crossing in Dorohusk. The queue, about 40 km long, reaches the city of Marinin.
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