The Prime minister of Poland has warned President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine to never ‘insult’ Poles again, returning to harsh rhetoric towards Kyiv after the Polish president had sought to defuse a simmering dispute between the two countries over the issue of Ukrainian grain imports.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Zelenskyy aparently angered his neighbours in Warsaw – a key military ally against Russia – when he infrmed the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week that Kyiv was working to preserve land routes for its grain exports amid a Russian blockade of the Black Sea, but that ‘political theatre’ around grain imports was helping Moscow’s cause.
Recall that sometime last week, Poland had extended a ban on Ukrainian grain imports in a unilateral move that broke with a European Union ruling. The move has shaken Kyiv’s relationship with Warsaw, which has been seen as one of its staunchest allies since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year.
“I … want to tell President Zelenskyy never to insult Poles again, as he did recently during his speech at the UN,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told an election rally on Friday, according to the State-run news agency PAP.
Earlier on Friday, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said the dispute between Poland and Ukraine over grain imports would not significantly affect good bilateral relations, in an apparent move to ease tensions.
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“I have no doubt that the dispute over the supply of grain from Ukraine to the Polish market is an absolute fragment of the entire Polish-Ukrainian relations,” Duda told a business conference. “I don’t believe that it can have a significant impact on them, so we need to solve this matter between us.”
Duda’s comment followed after Prime Minister Morawiecki was reported as saying that Poland would no longer send weapons to Ukraine amid the grain dispute.
“We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Morawiecki said on Wednesday, according to a local media report.
Poland is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections on October 15, and Morawiecki’s ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party has come in for criticism from the far right for what it says is the government’s subservient attitude to Kyiv.
Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said in an article by Politico that Poland wanted to see “a strong Ukrainian state emerge from this war with a vibrant economy”, and that Warsaw “will continue to back Ukraine’s efforts to join NATO and the EU”.
However, speaking to reporters in New York, Rau said that while Poland had not changed its policy towards Ukraine, there had been a “radical change in Polish public opinion’s perception” of the countries’ relationship.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin said on Friday that it was watching the situation between Kyiv and Warsaw closely, adding that tensions would inevitably grow between Kyiv and its European allies as the dispute over grain escalates.