More than 20,000 vehicles were stuck on the border between Ukraine and Poland this Thursday, blocked by Polish truck drivers since the beginning of the week in protest against “unfair” competition from their neighbors, Ukraine’s Ministry of Reconstruction said.
Several dozen Polish transport companies began blocking three border crossings between the two countries on Monday, demanding entry permits be restored for their Ukrainian competitors to reduce their numbers.
Queues have been growing throughout the week, with 20,000 trucks now “stranded on both sides” of the border, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Reconstruction.
This situation harms not only the economies of Ukraine and Poland, but also the economies of “other countries” that intend to transport goods, he lamented.
Ukraine guaranteed to “respect the right to demonstrate,” while declaring that it was “ready for constructive dialogue to resolve the situation.”
“Traffic on the Ukrainian-Polish border remains difficult” for trucks and is getting worse “every day,” border service spokesman Andriy Demchenko said, as quoted by the French news agency AFP.
At the Grebenne checkpoint in Poland, one of the three is blocked, “the length of the queue is about 40 kilometers,” according to local police spokeswoman Małgorzata Pawłowska.
“The waiting time to cross the border is about 160 hours,” he said.
At the Rava-Russkaya checkpoint in western Ukraine, some Ukrainian truck drivers said they waited for several days.
“We’ve waited a long time,” Dmitry said impatiently, adding that he arrived four days ago and his supplies of water and food were almost running low.
Alexander, 36, described the harsh conditions: “As you can see, there is a ditch and a field, no toilets, nothing,” he lamented, saying he had been trapped there for two days.
“It’s not normal to close the border with Ukraine during the war. This is just additional economic pressure on Ukraine,” lamented the heavy-duty truck driver.
Polish protest organizers said they would be able to continue their protest “in the long term, at least until the end of the year,” according to Andrei Demchenko, adding that buses and cars could travel.
The incident represents a new setback in relations between Kiev and Warsaw, which have worsened in recent months, in particular due to disagreements over the export of Ukrainian cereals to Europe through Poland.
Poland, which has hosted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the war, has been among the main donors of military aid to Ukraine, which has been in the grip of Russian aggression since February 2022, for more than a year and a half. .