As the grain dispute gets worse, Poland stops providing arms to Ukraine

 As the grain dispute gets worse, Poland stops providing arms to Ukraine

Poland, one of Ukraine's most steadfast allies, has said that it will no longer provide weaponry to its neighbour as a diplomatic row over grain intensifies.

Poland's priority, according to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, is on arming itself with more contemporary weapons.

Poland has not offered much more than the 320 Soviet-era tanks and 14 MiG-29 fighter fighters it has previously supplied to Ukraine.

The comments, however, come at a time when the two neighbours are quite tense.

After Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia extended an embargo on Ukrainian grain, Volodymyr Zelensky's remarks at the UN on Tuesday prompted Poland to call Ukraine's ambassador.

The way some of Ukraine's allies in Europe were acting out their support "in a political theatre" and "making a thriller out of grain," according to Mr. Zelensky, was alarming. His comments were criticised by Warsaw as being "unjustified regarding Poland, which has backed Ukraine from the very beginning of the war."

Following the Ukrainian ambassador's summons to the Warsaw foreign ministry in response to the Ukrainian leader's speech, Mr. Morawiecki was interviewed on Wednesday night by the exclusive Polsat news TV station.

The prime minister stated, "We are no longer delivering arms to Ukraine, as we are now arming Poland with more advanced weapons.

He was certain that Poland was assisting Ukraine in overcoming the "Russian barbarian" by retaining a military hub, but he refused to accept Poland's market access.

In agreement with the Americans and NATO, our centre in Rzeszow has been playing the same role it always has and always will.

Through transfers to Ukraine, Poland's military has reduced its own force by nearly a third and is currently replacing it with cutting-edge Western-produced equipment.

As a result of the upcoming shipment of roughly 60 Krab artillery pieces from the Polish firm PGZ, arms supplies to Ukraine won't terminate entirely.

Jacek Sasin, the minister of state assets for Poland, responded to a question concerning the prime minister's remarks by saying, "Right now, it is as the prime minister said; in the future, we will see."

What kinds of weapons are being given to Ukraine?

The grain conflict started when Russia invaded Ukraine in full, thus cutting off the main Black Sea trade lines and forcing Ukraine to find other overland routes.

Large amounts of grain ultimately ended up in central Europe as a result of that.

Because local farmers were concerned that Ukrainian grain was pushing down local prices, the European Union temporarily restricted grain imports into Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

The EU agreed not to extend the ban once it expired on September 15; nonetheless, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland decided to continue carrying it out.

The European Commission has emphasised numerous times that it is not the responsibility of individual EU countries to decide on the bloc's trade policy.

Ukraine filed complaints with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against those nations earlier this week on the bans, which it claimed were against international agreements.

Yulia Svyrydenko, minister of economy for Ukraine, stated that it was "critical for us to demonstrate that individual member states cannot ban imports of Ukrainian goods."

Poland, though, declared that they will maintain the embargo and that a WTO complaint "doesn't impress us."

If Ukraine intensified the grain conflict, according to Mr. Morawiecki, they would increase the amount of Kyiv-related products that were prohibited. The foreign ministry of Poland continued, "Pressuring Poland in multilateral fora or filing lawsuits in international tribunals are not appropriate ways to settle disputes between our countries."

The three nations declared they would nevertheless permit grain to be shipped through them to other markets notwithstanding the prohibition.

After Poland's ambassador was summoned, Kyiv urged Poland to "leave emotion aside" and that the parties instead take a positive approach to resolving the conflict.

The EU analysis, according to Catherina Colonna, showed that imports of Ukrainian grain wouldn't harm European farmers, and she called the tensions "regrettable".

Poland has offered significant assistance to Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia, pressing Germany to send the nation Leopard 2 battle tanks, promising to send fighter jets, and taking in more than 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees.