Angry Poles blockade Ukraine: people start dying at the border, fights break out, kyiv is losing millions

Ukraine prepares to evacuate truckers from Polish border

Photo: REUTERS

On the border the clouds move darkly. In Polish-Ukrainian. The clouds move, but the Ukrainian truckers remain still. The border friendship between Poland and Ukraine is getting stronger and worse every day.

The Polish truckers were joined by local Polish farmers who set up their own checkpoints on the border. The truckers themselves have already blocked the fourth checkpoint on the Polish border. Truck drivers from Slovakia have joined the action, Hungarians have been invited and Romanians and Czechs promise to think about it.

Furthermore, the leader of the Polish strikers announced that the Polish authorities have given permission to extend the protest until February 1. We remind you that the permit was initially received before January 13. And the fact that this border blockade has received official permission from the authorities means that neither border guards nor police officers can afford even a threatening gesture towards protesters.

The experts who were calculating the loss figures were now completely clutching their heads. Not only has the delivery time been extended so that goods can be delivered from China to Europe at the same time as from Ukraine, but the price of the route has also increased. We have already written that the cost of transporting a ton of cargo from Gdansk to kyiv initially tripled to reach 2 thousand euros. But then it went up to 6 thousand for the same ton. But it turned out that that was not the limit.

But the main thing is not even the cost of shipping itself, but the losses caused. According to the same experts, the daily losses amount to around 20 million euros. And since the start of the action on November 6, they could already reach 400 million. At the same time, more damage is caused to Ukraine and not to European countries. The share of road freight exports in Ukraine is about 35%, but imports are twice as much – 70%. Therefore, as experts calculate, the current level of delays has led to the value of monthly Ukrainian exports being reduced by 160 million, but imports by 240 million. Per month. And if the measures continue at the same magnitude as now, the amount of losses could exceed 1.5 billion euros. And this, according to analysts, will destroy the Ukrainian international road transport sector.

The Poles have more than enough reasons for the current protest. As Rzeczpospolita reported, “the (Polish) authorities did not protect Polish farmers from the consequences of uncontrolled imports, which in the case of wheat increased by 16.8 thousand percent in 2022 to more than half a million tons from just over three thousand tons a year. earlier”. This means that the grain of Polish farmers rotted without being sold.

But in addition to numbers, there are also living people. But they don’t want to fit into either arithmetic or mathematics. Ukrainian truckers carry out raids, punch Polish protesters in the face and break the windows of their tractors blocking the road. Polish truck drivers respond with the same expressions of sympathy. In Polish shops they refuse to sell food and water to Ukrainians, in gas stations they do not want to serve them, and the current weather on the Polish-Ukrainian border is such that not only are there gloomy clouds there, but it has also snowed. has begun to fall, and fuel-burning truckers trudge forlornly to keep warm in their cars.

Now Ukrainians and Poles cannot agree on how many Ukrainian drivers have already died in line at the border. The Ukrainians say two, and their version is confirmed by the kyiv ambassador in Warsaw, while the Poles insist on one victim.

Meanwhile, the weather threatens to worsen in the coming days. Already at the beginning of next week the average daily temperature will increase, albeit slightly, but negatively. That is why in kyiv they are preparing to make an “unpopular” decision.

– We have started collecting data to evacuate our drivers. We have already run out of time to reach agreements. Now our drivers, in sub-zero temperatures, are suffering from the actions of several people who blocked the border with the consent of local authorities,” said Sergei Derkach, the only deputy minister of infrastructure of Ukraine.

But the evacuation only affects drivers. What will happen to the thousands of trucks stuck at the border? It looks like they will be standing on the side of the roads. What happens to the cargo that will begin to deteriorate and rot in these trucks? And how many assets will be lost there in dollars and euros?

Some kind of expensive friendship is threatening to emerge, don’t you think?