Poland – Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met no top politicians during a stopover in Poland as he flew home Saturday from visits to the United States and Canada, according to The Guardian, which quotes a statement by the head of the Polish president’s office. The dispute between Ukraine and Poland has flared up just weeks before the Polish parliamentary elections on 15 October. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stepped up his criticism of Zelenskiy’s statements at the UN General Assembly in New York last week.
“I want to make it clear to President Zelenskiy that he must never insult Poles again, as he did the other day when he was at the United Nations,” Morawiecki told Polish news agency PAP on Friday evening. Zelenskiy caused European neighbours to react angrily when he referred to the banned import of Ukrainian grain in Poland, among other countries, as “political theatre.” Poland has been one of the staunchest supporters of Ukraine since Russia invaded the country, both at the refugee and bilateral materiel level.
While Poland has extended a now defunct EU import ban on Ukrainian grain to several European countries, Poland’s prime minister Morawiecki was quoted by PAP and CNN as saying that Poland would continue to permit the transit of Ukrainian grain through Poland. /ritzau/