Current:Home > reviewsGrain spat drags Ukraine’s ties with ally Poland to lowest point since start of Russian invasion -FinanceCore
Grain spat drags Ukraine’s ties with ally Poland to lowest point since start of Russian invasion
View
Date:2025-04-22 10:49:28
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A dispute about whether Ukrainian grain should be allowed to enter the domestic markets of Poland and other European Union countries has pushed the tight relationship between Kyiv and Warsaw to its lowest point since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.
Polish leaders have compared Ukraine to a drowning person hurting his helper and threatened to expand a ban on food products from the war-torn country. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that EU allies that are prohibiting imports of his nation’s grain are helping Russia.
Poland, on NATO’s eastern flank, has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine, sending weapons and humanitarian aid and opening its borders to refugees.
Now, Polish officials, who are trying to win parliamentary elections next month with help from farmers’ votes, are expressing dismay over some of Ukraine’s latest moves, including a World Trade Organization complaint over bans on Ukrainian grain from Poland and two other EU countries.
“Alarmingly, some in Europe play out solidarity in a political theater — turning grain into a thriller. They may seem to play their own roles. In fact, they’re helping set the stage for a Moscow actor,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday during the U.N. General Assembly.
Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jablonski, on Wednesday voiced “strong protest” of Zelenskyy’s comments to Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Zvarych.
Jablonski “indicated that it is untrue, as far as Poland is concerned, and that the opinion is unjustified toward the country that has been supporting Ukraine from the very first days of the war,” the Polish Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Tadeusz Iwanski, a Ukraine analyst from a Polish state-funded think tank, said that since the beginning of the war, Ukraine “has been pursuing a hyperassertive diplomacy, partly due to which its requests and demands have been granted, and it has been proven effective.”
“This assertive policy might have taught Ukraine that things can be achieved through such diplomacy,” said Iwanski, head of Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova studies at the Centre for Eastern Studies in Warsaw.
He said Ukraine likely feels strong pressure to export its grain to help bolster its finances.
Meanwhile, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party is fighting for the votes of farmers, many of whom are upset that Ukraine’s food products have flooded the local market, pushing prices down and hurting their livelihoods.
Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia banned some Ukrainian agricultural goods after the EU recently decided to lift such restrictions. Croatia joined in Tuesday, when Kyiv announced it was responding with a WTO complaint.
“Ukraine is behaving like a drowning person clinging to everything he can ... but we have the right to defend ourselves against harm being done to us,” Polish President Andrzej Duda told reporters Tuesday in New York, where he was attending the U.N. General Assembly.
The growing tensions highlight the risks Ukraine faces in maintaining Western support as its fight against Russia drags on.
Ukraine prevailing is so important to Poland that it would not be likely to restrict the military assistance to Ukraine. Poland has bitter memories of being subjected to Moscow’s rule in the past and does not want to see Russia win a war in a neighboring country.
Poland’s ruling party faces an election challenge from a new far-right coalition, Confederation, whose leaders complain that the country is doing too much to help Ukraine and claim Ukraine isn’t grateful enough.
The rift also shows how Ukraine and its neighbors are competing agricultural powers and how European defense of domestic farmers could complicate Kyiv’s hopes for a future path into the EU.
Ukraine — a major global supplier of wheat, barley, corn and vegetable oil — has struggled since Russia’s invasion to get its food products to parts of the world struggling with hunger. All the EU countries will keep allowing Ukrainian products to move through their borders to world markets.
Russia dealt a huge blow by withdrawing in July from a wartime agreement that ensured safe passage for Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea. That has left more expensive routes through Europe as the main way for Ukraine to get its products to developing nations where food prices have risen since Russia’s war began.
However, the first ship loaded with grain left a Ukrainian port this week under a temporary Black Sea corridor.
Ukraine also threatened this week to ban some Polish food items, but appeared to back off that. Such a move would bring only more bans from Poland, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said.
“I am warning the Ukrainian authorities, because if they escalate the conflict in this way, we will add more products to the ban on imports into Poland,” Morawiecki said Wednesday on Polsat News.
He argued that Ukrainian officials do not seem to understand how Poland’s agricultural market has been destabilized by the war.
In Bulgaria, the pro-Russia Socialist party has submitted a proposal to parliament to ban foods from Ukraine. So far, the government is just halting the import of sunflower seeds until a quota is agreed with Kyiv.
Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov announced the measure late Tuesday after lengthy talks with farmers who launched a nationwide protest last week over parliament’s decision to lift a ban on Ukrainian imports, citing higher food prices.
____
Veselin Toshkov contributed from Sofia, Bulgaria.
veryGood! (7)
Related
- Military service academies see drop in reported sexual assaults after alarming surge
- A list of mass killings in the United States this year
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Something Corporate
- Appeals Court Affirms Conviction of Everglades Scientist Accused of Stealing ‘Trade Secrets’
- Charges tied to China weigh on GM in Q4, but profit and revenue top expectations
- 2025 NFL Draft order: Updated first round picks after Week 10 games
- Will Trump’s hush money conviction stand? A judge will rule on the president-elect’s immunity claim
- Stock market today: Asian stocks decline as China stimulus plan disappoints markets
- Charges tied to China weigh on GM in Q4, but profit and revenue top expectations
- NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Bobby Allison dies at 86
Ranking
- Residents worried after ceiling cracks appear following reroofing works at Jalan Tenaga HDB blocks
- Pete Rose fans say final goodbye at 14-hour visitation in Cincinnati
- Jerry Jones lashes out at question about sun's glare at AT&T Stadium after Cowboys' loss
- NASCAR Hall of Fame driver Bobby Allison dies at 86
- House passes bill to add 66 new federal judgeships, but prospects murky after Biden veto threat
- Wicked Director Jon M. Chu Reveals Name of Baby Daughter After Missing Film's LA Premiere for Her Birth
- Ben Affleck and His Son Samuel, 12, Enjoy a Rare Night Out Together
- Bo the police K-9, who located child taken at knifepoint, wins Hero Dog Awards 2024
Recommendation
Pregnant Kylie Kelce Shares Hilarious Question Her Daughter Asked Jason Kelce Amid Rising Fame
Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, 4G
How Jersey Shore's Sammi Sweetheart Giancola's Fiancé Justin May Supports Her on IVF Journey
Week 10 fantasy football rankings: PPR, half-PPR and standard leagues
Selena Gomez engaged to Benny Blanco after 1 year together: 'Forever begins now'
Fire crews on both US coasts battle wildfires, 1 dead; Veterans Day ceremony postponed
World War II veteran reflects on life as he turns 100
32 things we learned in NFL Week 10: Who will challenge for NFC throne?