Poland, Hungary and Slovakia extended their ban beyond Sept. 15 on Ukrainian grain being dumped onto European markets. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promptly acted on his threat, to take the three countries to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for their action.
On Sept 19, Polish President Andrzej Duda, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly Tuesday, issued a warning to Kiev: “It would be good for Ukraine to remember that it receives help from us and to remember that we are also a transit country to Ukraine.” Then, as reported by RT, Duda spoke about the need to protect Poland’s domestic markets from the influx of Ukrainian grain, and compared Ukraine to “a drowning person [who] is extremely dangerous because he can pull you to the depths.” Duda said that they had a duty to defend itself against businessmen who “would like to sell grain as quickly as possible at the lowest possible cost.”
Then yesterday, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki escalated, announcing that they would no longer provide weapons to Ukraine. “We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine...” and added that additional trade bans could be imposed on Kiev, since the “Ukrainian authorities do not understand the degree to which Poland’s farming industry has been destabilized” by foreign imports.
That same day, Zelensky took a swipe at Poland, Hungary and Slovakia. In his address to the UN General Assembly, he claimed that some supposedly friendly European nations “play out solidarity” with Ukraine, but they are indirectly “helping set the stage to a Moscow actor.” The Polish Foreign Ministry then summoned Ukrainian Ambassador Vasil Zvarich to protest Zelensky’s “unjustified” remark.
