Polish farmers will start a protest against the import of Ukrainian grain on the border with Lithuania on 1 March, the Ukrainian mass media reported, citing the Lithuanian LRT.
The activists plan to stop and check vehicles at the checkpoint between the Polish town of Budziski and the Lithuanian town of Kalwaria. The protesters intend to search for Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products, one of the organisers of the blockade, Karol Pieczyński, said.
According to him, the farmers will stop and check all vehicles that may be carrying grain or other agricultural products from Ukraine.
“The protest action should start on 1 March at 10 am. It will not be a complete blockade of the border crossing point. We farmers, together with Polish services, would like to check what is being transported in lorries, paying special attention to those vehicles that have the potential to transport agricultural products,” Pieczyński said in an interview with Lithuanian media.
He noted that these measures would not apply to personal vehicles, fuel tankers, vehicles carrying metal or livestock. He said the need for such an action was due to the plight of farmers in his country, although such inspections would inconvenience transporters.
Pieczyński spoke about farmers’ suspicions that some Ukrainian grain intended for transit through Poland actually remains in the country.
“Agricultural products are transloaded from lorries onto trains whose final destination is Baltic Sea transit ports. But farmers suspect that <…> part of those products remains in Poland,” he said.
We shall remind you that earlier Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a news conference accused Poland of blocking the export of Ukrainian grain to the EU countries. According to him, this was a “political signal” to Kiev from Warsaw.