Ukraine has offered Poland a plan to end the border blockade, Ukraine’s prime minister said, according to a statement published on the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers’ website. Denys Shmyhal said he arrived at the Polish border with other members of Ukraine’s government on Friday to negotiate with his Polish colleagues, but they didn’t show up.
The prime minister said the so-called Plan of Understanding consists of five steps, which include launching “a joint control system at the border between Ukraine and the (European Union)” and adopting “a joint appeal to the EU commission calling for a ban on Russian agricultural exports to the EU.”
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, President Andrzej Duda, and EU officials to come to the border. Reuters reports Tusk said on Thursday the Polish and Ukrainian governments would meet in Warsaw on March 28 but did not accept a request by Zelensky for urgent talks on border blockades by Polish farmers.
Some background: Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia) said that “unknown individuals” dumped “rapeseed bound for Germany” out of the Ukrainian train at the Dorohusk border crossing into Poland in a Telegram post on Friday.
This is not the first time Ukrainian grain has been dumped on the railroad tracks at the Polish border. On Tuesday, Oleksandr Kubrakov, who serves as Vice Prime Minister for the Restoration of Ukraine, posted a video that shows demonstrators opening railway carriages and allowing the grain to pour onto the tracks.
Farmers in Poland have boosted their protests against cheap Ukrainian grain imports and the EU’s Green Deal and have vowed to continue their demonstrations for 30 days, which began February 9.
