Poland ceases to provide Ukraine with weapons as grain dispute gets worse

Poland, a strong supporter of Ukraine, has stopped providing weapons to Ukraine due to a diplomatic disagreement over grain.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated that Poland’s main priority is to protect itself using advanced weapons.

Poland has already given Ukraine 320 old tanks from the Soviet era and 14 fighter jets called MiG-29. Poland does not have much else to offer to Ukraine.

But, the comments happen at the same time as there is a lot of anger or conflict between the two countries next to each other.

Poland called Ukraine’s ambassador on Tuesday because President Volodymyr Zelensky made comments at the United Nations. Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia had extended a ban on Ukrainian grain.

Mr Zelensky said it’s concerning how certain European countries who are supposed to be friends with Ukraine are acting for their own political benefit instead of showing real support. It’s like they are using the situation to create drama and make a big deal out of something that is not really important. Warsaw criticized his words as “not fair about Poland, which has helped Ukraine since the war started”.

On Wednesday night, Mr. Morawiecki talked to Polsat news TV channel after the Ukrainian ambassador was called to the foreign ministry in Warsaw because of the Ukrainian leader’s speech.

The prime minister said that we are not giving weapons to Ukraine anymore because we are giving better weapons to Poland.

He strongly believed that Poland was supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia. However, he did not want Poland’s economy to be negatively impacted by the import of grain.

“Our center in Rzeszow is doing the same job as it always has, working together with Americans and NATO. This will continue in the future. ”

Poland’s military has given away approximately one-third of its own military to Ukraine and is now in the process of replacing it with new, Western-made equipment.

The Polish company PGZ will continue to send about 60 Krab artillery weapons to Ukraine in the coming months.

When asked about what the prime minister said, Jacek Sasin, the Polish state assets minister, told Radio Plus on Thursday that “right now, things are uncertain, but we will find out more in the future. ”

The grain dispute started when Russia invaded Ukraine and blocked the main Black Sea shipping lanes. This caused Ukraine to have to find different overland ways to transport their grain. This caused a lot of grain to end up in central Europe.

As a result, the European Union stopped the import of grain to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia for a while. They did this to support the farmers in those countries who were worried that the cheap grain from Ukraine was making their prices go down.

The ban stopped on 15 September and the EU decided not to continue it, but Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland chose to keep using it.

The European Commission has said many times that individual EU countries can’t make trade policies for the group on their own.

The Economy Minister of Ukraine, Yulia Svyrydenko, said that it is very important for Ukraine to show that countries cannot stop Ukraine from selling their products to them.

However, Poland has stated that they will continue to enforce the ban, and they are not concerned about a complaint made to the WTO.

Mr Morawiecki said that if Ukraine makes the grain dispute worse, they will ban even more products from Kyiv. Poland’s foreign ministry said that trying to pressure Poland in group conversations or filing complaints with international courts are not the right ways to solve problems between our countries.

Even though there is a ban, the three countries said they will still let grain pass through them to reach other markets.

Kyiv asked Poland to put aside their emotions and instead take a constructive approach to solve the dispute, after their ambassador was summoned.

The French Foreign Minister, Catherina Colonna, said on Wednesday that a study conducted by the European Union showed that Ukrainian grain imports would not cause harmful effects to European farmers. She also stated that she found the tensions between the two countries to be unfortunate.

Poland has helped Ukraine a lot in its fight against Russia. They have asked Germany to give tanks to Ukraine and promised to give fighter jets to Ukraine. Poland has also welcomed over 1. 5 million refugees from Ukraine.