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Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vassily Zvarych, has accused Polish truckers of enjoying into Moscow’s fingers by imposing a blockade on a number of border crossings on Monday. The protesting truck drivers have vowed to maintain the border successfully shut till Warsaw addresses their complaints.
The truckers promised to let just one truck move per hour, aside from these carrying army or humanitarian support, or with perishable items and livestock.
The protestors drew parallels between their motion and the current unrest amongst Polish farmers, who’ve repeatedly urged Warsaw to cease the inflow of low-cost Ukrainian grain imports.
“We’re going to do it the way in which farmers did – hold protesting till the federal government acknowledges there’s a drawback and does one thing about it,” Jacek Sokol, the proprietor of a small trucking firm and the deputy head of the Committee to Defend Transporters and Transport Employers, the group behind the protests, has mentioned.
The protests promptly drew the eye of Ukrainian officers, with Zvarych condemning the blockade as a “strike within the again” by the Polish.
“The corridors of solidarity between Ukraine and the EU, going by the territory of Poland are underneath risk,” the diplomat mentioned in an announcement posted to social media.
“We name on the Polish protesters to cease the blockade of the border and select different types of defending their rights that might not impede motion throughout the border,” he added, asserting that the protest was really enjoying into the fingers of the “widespread enemy” of Kiev and Warsaw – the “Russian terrorists,” as he put it. The truckers’ protest subsequently harms not solely the pursuits of the 2 nations, however all of Europe, he claimed.
The restrictions on the variety of Ukrainian-registered vans coming into the EU although Poland and elsewhere had been scrapped early within the ongoing battle between Moscow and Kiev. This finally resulted in a flood of Ukrainian vans, with the variety of crossings having elevated to some 900,000 this yr alone, in line with Polish media studies. Earlier than the battle, Ukrainian truckers acquired a mean of 160,000-180,000 permits per yr to enter Poland for particular shipments or transit.
Each Warsaw and Brussels have urged the truckers to raise the blockade, however the Polish authorities have insisted they’re powerless to do something whereas the EU-wide measure stays in impact.
A Der Spiegel report on Friday instructed that the Polish border guards are quietly supporting the protest, provided that freight processing instances have elevated drastically in current months.
Some EU officers have condemned the protests, branding the Polish truckers “un-European.”
“I completely discourage this sort of conduct of blocking a border. It’s not one thing very European,” EU Transport Commissioner Adina Valean informed Politico, including that officers are engaged on an answer to the problem.
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