Poland and Ukraine are actually close allies. But the grain dispute escalated. In Ukraine there is a suspicion that there is a connection with the Polish election campaign. Now there are conciliatory tones from Warsaw.
A combine harvester plows through a huge sunflower field near Shestirna in the Dnipropetrovsk region of southeast Ukraine. Oleksandr Rybjanin has no illusions: he hasn’t sold anything this year, says the farmer. “There’s no point in selling because we’re not making a profit.”
Rybyanin is by no means the only one who can’t get rid of his crops. Since the beginning of Russia’s major invasion, Moscow has blocked Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea and occupied access points to the Sea of Azov. Russia also withdrew from the UN-brokered grain export agreement and is attacking port facilities, warehouses and grain silos. Ukrainian Danube ports are also affected, through which exports now primarily have to be processed.
In addition, contrary to the EU Commission’s decision, Hungary and Poland are sticking to the import ban for cheaper grain from Ukraine.
Connection to the Polish election campaign?
“Friends are turning against us, and the actor from Moscow can take the stage,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky this week at the UN Security Council. The Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki then indicated that he no longer wanted to supply Kiev with weapons.
Taras Zagorodny from the non-governmental think tank “National Anti-Crisis Group” believes that all of this shouldn’t be overestimated: “Poland hasn’t delivered any weapons for a year because they have already delivered all the Soviet weapons they had to Ukraine. (…. .) They’re really upgrading their army, like buying South Korean tanks.”
Zagorodny thinks there is a connection with the upcoming elections in Poland: “They show how they defend their national interests. And that’s why I don’t think there’s any need to make a drama out of it.”
“There is only one enemy – Russia”
Mykola Davydchuk also assesses the dispute in a similar way, and he can imagine a round table under EU leadership to resolve it. This is only logical because Poland receives high subsidies from Brussels for its agriculture, says the political analyst. In Ukraine they see the dispute as a temporary problem linked to the Polish elections:
I’m sure everything will be fine after the election campaign. We also want such political issues not to lead to disagreements between partners in Europe, as we know that there is only one enemy – and that is Russia.
But the problems with the grain trade need to be addressed and solved, says Dawydtschuk. On the side of Poland – but not on the backs of Ukrainian refugees or combined with threats not to supply any more weapons.
The open dispute with Poland hurt him a lot, commented the Ukrainian writer Juryj Shtscherbak on the conflict from which only Moscow benefits. However, former diplomat Shcherbak can understand Warsaw’s anger at Zelensky’s statements:
Insolence and threats towards a friendly state are not a sign of our strength – and malicious hints of cooperation with the enemy are not exactly the height of diplomatic wisdom.
Duda calms the situation
Cooling emotions and finding a constructive approach is how Polish President Andrzej Duda has now spoken out. There are aspects that may be controversial and statements that could have been worded differently, he said on Polish television.
The agriculture ministers of both countries spoke on the phone – and any agreement in the grain export dispute is also in the interest of farmer Rybjanin. Because it took him endless strength and effort to till the fields. “When the Russian occupiers were driven out of here, everything was overgrown with weeds and the fields were mined,” he reports. It took a lot of effort to clear the mines and get the land in a condition “so that we could sow this year. We worked on it all winter.”
Meanwhile, another grain freighter left the port of Chornomorsk today. The Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure announced that the “Aroyat” was sailing under the Palau flag and was carrying almost 18,000 tons of Ukrainian wheat for Egypt.