As war continued to rage in Ukraine’s east, much of its western border was cordoned off Tuesday by another battle, this one with Polish farmers.
Farmers have been protesting for months about the influx of Ukrainian products that they say is crowding the Polish market and undermining their livelihoods. On Tuesday, they blocked checkpoints for commercial transport, stopped the passage of about 3,000 Ukrainian trucks and opened some train cars containing Ukrainian grain, spilling it onto the tracks.
“It’s either us or them,” a Polish farmer told Polish TV channel Polsat News on Tuesday. “Someone must care about us.”
The demonstration sparked a counter-protest in Ukraine, where previous blockades by Polish truckers have hampered the supply chain of goods reaching the country, causing shortages that have begun to affect soldiers on the battlefield.
Oleh Nikolenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, said the protests were “undermining Ukraine’s economy and its resilience to fend off Russian aggression.”
The protests on Tuesday echoed those of other farmers across Europe in recent months protesting European Union environmental regulations and imports that farmers said were making it harder for them to earn a living.
The problems with Polish farmers arose after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which restricted sea shipments from Ukrainian ports. To ease price increases and grain shortages in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, the European Union suspended tariffs and quotas on Ukrainian food products in order to move as much food as possible by rail and truck through neighboring countries such as Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
To some extent, the plan worked, but some Ukrainian grain also reached local markets in transit countries, creating tensions with local farmers who claimed the influx was pushing up prices.
Before toppling his government in elections last October, former Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki imposed a unilateral ban on Ukrainian grain and some other agricultural imports, in violation of European Union rules. The new government under Donald Tusk upheld the ban on imports of many products, including sunflower and wheat flour. The agriculture minister said on Tuesday that Poland is working on a bilateral agreement with Ukraine to extend protection to other goods such as sugar, poultry and eggs.
The Ukrainian government said that in January, most of Ukraine’s agricultural exports went by sea, and only about 5 percent of the total was routed through Poland.
“This shows that claims by Polish agricultural associations that their market is oversaturated are unfair,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s minister of communities, lands and infrastructure development, said in a statement.
However, some signs affixed to protesting trucks on Tuesday also contained profanity against Ukrainian refugees, and Ukrainian officials said the blockade was instigated by far-right political figures.
“The issue is not with grain, but rather with politics,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
In recent months, Polish truck drivers have also blocked major crossings due to reduced competition from Ukrainian truck drivers, who are not subject to the same working hours and wage regulations as EU drivers. Polish drivers have called on Brussels to restore a system licenses for Ukrainian truckers which was abolished after the Russian invasion.
Edward Lucas, senior adviser at the Center for European Policy Analysis, said that while the far right may be keen to exploit the protest to stir up anti-Ukrainian sentiment, the farmers’ grievances were legitimate and that Polish and European Union authorities should address them before they escalate into wider tensions.
“There is a risk that this will become geopolitically important,” Mr. Lukasz said, adding that Polish politicians “have allowed it to blow up to the point where people are really very cross.”
