Poland, one of Ukraine’s most steadfast allies, has said that it will no longer provide weaponry to its neighbor as a diplomatic row over grain intensifies.
Poland’s priority, according to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, is on arming itself with more contemporary weapons.
Poland has not offered much more than the 320 Soviet-era tanks and 14 MiG-29 fighter fighters it has previously supplied to Ukraine.
The comments, however, come at a time when the two neighbors are quite tense.
After Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia extended an embargo on Ukrainian grain, Volodymyr Zelensky’s remarks at the UN on Tuesday prompted Poland to call Ukraine’s ambassador.
The way some of Ukraine’s allies in Europe were acting out their support “in a political theatre” and “making a thriller out of grain,” according to Mr. Zelensky, was alarming. His comments were criticized by Warsaw as being “unjustified regarding Poland, which has backed Ukraine from the very beginning of the war.”
Following the Ukrainian ambassador’s summons to the Warsaw foreign ministry in response to the Ukrainian leader’s speech, Mr. Morawiecki was interviewed on Wednesday night by the exclusive Polsat news TV station.
The prime minister stated, “We are no longer delivering arms to Ukraine, as we are now arming Poland with more advanced weapons.
He was adamant that Poland was aiding Ukraine in overcoming the “Russian barbarian” by keeping a military hub, but he would not permit grain supplies to disturb Poland’s markets, according to Polish state news agency Pap.
In accordance with the Americans and NATO, our center in Rzeszow has been playing the same function it always has and always will.
Poland’s military is replacing its outdated Western-made equipment, which has been reduced by nearly a third through transfers to Ukraine.
As a result of the upcoming shipment of roughly 60 Krab artillery pieces from the Polish firm PGZ, arms supplies to Ukraine won’t terminate entirely. Later, government spokesman Piotr Muller stressed that only pre-agreed deliveries of ammunition and weapons, including those from deals made with Ukraine, would be made.
Jacek Sasin, the minister of state assets for Poland, responded to a question concerning the prime minister’s remarks by saying, “Right now, it is as the prime minister said; in the future, we will see.”
In recent weeks, the bitter election campaign in Poland has intensified, and the ruling Law and Justice party has risen to the defense of Polish farmers who feel endangered by shipments of Ukrainian grain. The vote is scheduled for October 15.
Ukraine was obliged to find alternate, overland ways as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion because the main Black Sea shipping lanes were all but shut down.
Large amounts of grain ultimately ended up in Central Europe as a result of that.
Because local farmers were concerned that Ukrainian grain was pushing down local prices, the European Union temporarily restricted grain imports into Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.
Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland have kept the ban in place after it expired on September 15 despite the European Commission’s stress that EU member states should not make broad trade policy decisions.
Ukraine filed complaints with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against those nations earlier this week on the bans, which it claimed were against international agreements.
Yulia Svyrydenko, minister of economy for Ukraine, stated that it was “critical for us to demonstrate that individual member states cannot ban imports of Ukrainian goods.”
Poland, though, declared that they will maintain the embargo and that a WTO complaint “doesn’t impress us.”
If Ukraine intensified the grain conflict, according to Mr. Morawiecki, they would increase the amount of Kyiv-related products that were prohibited. The foreign ministry of Poland continued, “Pressuring Poland in multilateral fora or filing lawsuits in international tribunals are not appropriate ways to settle disputes between our countries.”
The three nations declared they would nevertheless permit grain to be shipped through them to other markets notwithstanding the prohibition.
After Poland’s ambassador was summoned, Kyiv urged Poland to “leave emotion aside” and that the parties instead take a positive approach to resolving the conflict.
According to an EU assessment, grain imports from Ukraine wouldn’t harm European farmers, according to Catherina Colonna, France’s foreign minister, who also called the tensions “regrettable”.
