The mayor of the city of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, in an address in Polish, called on Warsaw to lift the blockade from the checkpoint on the border with Ukraine.

"Our Polish friends must return to reality. Does Poland have the courage, political will and civilian tools to end this shameful blockade of Ukraine? The price is too high," TASS quoted him as saying.

The politician also called the Polish truckers who blocked the border "a group of marginals."

Since November 6, the Poles have been blocking three main checkpoints on the border with Ukraine: "Yagodyn - Dorohusk", "Krakovets - Korcheva" and "Rava-Ruska - Khrebene". Since November 23, the protesters have also blocked the Medyka-Shehyni checkpoint.

Because of this, trucks arriving from Ukraine are forced to stand in queues for many kilometers for days. The Ukrainian ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Zvarych, claims that two Ukrainian drivers have died at the border since the beginning of the transport blockade. In this regard, Kiev sent a note of protest to Warsaw, demanding to unblock the movement of trucks.

Ukrainian truckers are looking for detours, which leads to traffic congestion in neighboring countries. Negotiations with the protesters have not yet yielded any results.

Recall that Polish cargo carriers demand the abolition of benefits provided by the European Union to drivers from Ukraine, the restoration of the previous procedure for mandatory licensing of Ukrainian commercial freight transport and the cancellation of permits issued to Ukrainian transport companies after February 24, 2022.

The heads of the associations of cargo carriers of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania sent a joint appeal to the European Commission and relevant ministers, which indicated that the agreement between Brussels and Kiev, on the basis of which the Ukrainian side can freely carry out transportation to the EU, created a tense situation in the European market. It is noted that the agreement damages the competitiveness of EU road carriers, since after its conclusion, a huge number of shipments began to be carried out by Ukrainian companies.

In a statement, the heads of the freight carriers' associations stressed that they had warned Brussels about such a development, but their objections were ignored.

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  • © Wojtek Radwanski

The situation on the Polish-Ukrainian border caused outrage in Kiev. Thus, the former ambassador of Ukraine to the United States, Valeriy Chaly, believes that the country's authorities should file a lawsuit against Warsaw because of the blockade.

"Even when they unblock (the border. — RT), there will be huge losses. Therefore, it is necessary to file a lawsuit without inciting the situation, to all structures that compensate businesses for these losses," he said in an interview with the NTA TV channel.

Chaly added that "European friends" will first of all seek to defend their interests, which may prevent Ukraine from joining the EU.

In turn, Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy of Ukraine Markiyan Dmytrasevich said that due to the blockade, interruptions in the supply of fuel to the country began.

"We are already seeing problems with such important supplies as (imports. – RT) fuel to Ukraine," RIA Novosti quoted him as saying.

Volodymyr Zelensky also spoke about this. "We have difficulties at the border... I believe, first of all, because of some political steps taken by our neighbors. I believe that we need to have a very balanced policy. Have an action plan to follow. We have this plan," UNIAN quoted him as saying.

According to Zelensky, officials are working in this direction, and the situation on the border was provoked by "some new questions." He did not disclose the details of the plan, which Kiev allegedly has.

It is worth noting that this is not the first conflict between the countries of Eastern Europe and Ukraine, provoked by the benefits that the European Commission has provided to Kiev in various areas.

So, in September, Poland decided to maintain a ban on the import of Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products, despite the fact that the European Commission lifted the corresponding embargo. Hungary and Slovakia made a similar decision.

Commenting on the situation, Vladimir Olenchenko, a researcher at the Center for European Studies at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, suggested that the "stock of friendship" on the basis of joint Russophobia between Warsaw and Kiev is almost exhausted.

"Ukraine and Poland have historically always been in confrontation," the RT interlocutor recalled.

As for the current contradictions, they are caused solely by the political decision of the EC to endow Ukraine with a number of privileges, Olenchenko explained.

"Of course, Brussels and the European Commission are responsible for this, as they have granted privileged treatment to Ukrainian road carriers to the detriment of Polish ones. This was a continuation of a similar situation in the field of imports of Ukrainian agricultural products. Naturally, this will increase tensions between the two countries, given the unstable domestic political situation in Poland and instability in Ukraine itself," the political scientist concluded.