Poland decided to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine to refocus on strengthening its military forces, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawecki said on Wednesday, the 20th of September. This policy shift comes amid an ongoing dispute over Ukraine’s agricultural imports, reports Politico.
“We are no longer providing weapons to Ukraine, because now we are arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki said on Polish television channel Polsat, stressing that the nation needs the means to defend itself effectively. However,
he assured that the decision would not endanger Ukraine’s security.
The Polish Prime Minister’s remarks coincided with the growing tensions between Kyiv and the European Union (EU) in recent days following the European Commission’s (EC) decision to allow the import of Ukrainian grain throughout the EU, lifting restrictions on grain imports that had originally been imposed by five eastern EU countries to protect their farmers from competition.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky implicitly criticised European countries that have imposed grain import bans in a UN speech on Tuesday, the 19th of September, saying they are unwittingly helping Moscow. Although Zelensky did not specifically name-called Poland, Warsaw summoned the Ukrainian ambassador in response.
On Polsat, Mateusz Morawiecki also warned “Ukrainian authorities”, saying that if the [grain import] conflict escalated, Poland could extend the Ukrainian import ban to additional products,
underlining the current instability of the Polish agricultural sector.
CNN, citing reports from the Polish state news agency PAP, writes that the Polish Prime Minister explained in a television interview that Poland would continue to allow the transit of Ukrainian goods through its territory, adding that Poland rather benefits economically from this transit. Morawiecki also accused the Ukrainian oligarchs of flooding the Polish market with grain without taking local farmers into account.
BNN previously reported that Ukraine filed a lawsuit to the WTO on the 18th of September against Slovakia, Poland and Hungary over their unilateral bans on grain imports from Ukraine, claiming that the bans violated international obligations. The EC’s ban on grain imports from Ukraine expired on the 15th of September and was not extended.
Read also: Ukraine sues EU neighbours over grain import ban