Poland, one of Ukraine’s most faithful allies, has stated it will no longer supply weapons to the country as a diplomatic dispute over grain escalates.
On Tuesday, Poland summoned Ukraine’s ambassador over comments made by President Volodymyr Zelensky at the UN. He said some nations had feigned solidarity with Ukraine, which Warsaw denounced as „unjustified concerning Poland, which has supported Ukraine since the first days of the war”.
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, announced the decision to no longer supply Ukraine with weapons in a televised address on Wednesday after a day of rapidly escalating tensions between the two countries over grain imports, says the BBC.
The nation’s prime minister said it would instead focus on arming itself with more modern weapons.
The grain dispute began after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine all but closed the main Black Sea shipping lanes and forced Ukraine to find alternative overland routes. This led to large quantities of grain ending up in central Europe, and so the European Union temporarily banned imports of grain into five countries; Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia to protect local farmers, who feared Ukrainian grain was driving down the prices locally.
The ban ended on 15 September and the EU chose not to renew it, but Hungary, Slovakia and Poland decided to keep on implementing it. Despite the ban, the three countries said they would still allow grain to be transported through them to other markets. Nevertheless, the European Commission has repeatedly stated that it is not up to individual EU members to make trade policy for the bloc.
Earlier this week, Ukraine filed lawsuits to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against those countries over the bans, which it said were a violation of international obligations.
Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said that „it is crucially important for us to prove that individual member states cannot ban imports of Ukrainian goods”.
But Poland said they would keep the ban in place, and a „complaint before the WTO doesn’t impress us”.
Morawiecki said they would increase the number of banned products from Kiev if Ukraine escalates the grain dispute, because „putting pressure on Poland in multilateral forums or sending complaints to international courts are not appropriate methods to resolve differences between our countries”.
