Politics

Ukrainian minister says buses being blocked on Polish border; Police deny

Participants in the protests organized on the Polish side of the border with Ukraine, as well as the Polish police, do not allow buses to cross the border in both directions, reported a deputy prime minister of Ukraine has.

On Monday, Oleksandr Kubrakov, who also serves as minister of infrastructure, wrote on the X platform in English that “passengers are being held without any explanation.” “We emphasize that these actions are unacceptable in relation to Ukrainian citizens,” he stressed.

The message was addressed to the head of Poland’s National Security Bureau (BBN), Jacek Siewiera, the Polish police, and the minister of interior and administration, Marcin Kierwiński.

Earlier on Monday, Kubrakov told the RBK-Ukraina portal that Poles should not have Ukrainians as their enemy because the two countries share a common enemy, which is Russia.
He also said that Ukrainian agricultural products do not pose any threat to the Polish market.

Later on Monday, a spokeswoman for the Polish police denied the news about the bus traffic obstruction.

“It’s not true; nothing like that is happening. We, the police, are absolutely not checking humanitarian, military, or medical aid or buses with people. They pass through smoothly,” she said.

On February 22, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that to ensure a 100-percent guarantee that military and humanitarian aid will reach Ukraine without any delays, border crossings with Ukraine and the related roads and railways will be entered onto the list of critical infrastructure.

Nation-wide strikes

Polish farmers have been protesting since last year against EU regulations that allow some Ukrainian agricultural produce tariff-free access to EU markets. They argue that this has led to a drop in the prices of their own produce and made it hard to sell it on the domestic market.

Their demands include abandoning the EU’s Green Deal program, which aims to make farming more eco-friendly, sealing the borders against the influx of agri-food products from outside the EU, and defending animal husbandry in Poland.

On Monday, a Polish-Ukrainian intergovernmental commission said it was preparing measures to solve the problem of blockades set up on the Polish-Ukrainian border by those striking.
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