Should we see the shadow of Russia behind the angry movement of Polish farmers against Ukraine? According to Warsaw, the anti-Ukrainian and pro-Vladimir Putin slogans that appeared during a wave of demonstrations in Poland could have been created under the influence of “Russian agents”. “We believe that this is an attempt to take control of the agricultural protest movement by extremist and irresponsible groups, perhaps influenced by Russian agents,” wrote the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a press release published this Wednesday, February 21.
During a demonstration on Tuesday, farmers in Gorzyczki, southern Poland, unfurled a banner reading “Putin, restore order in Ukraine, in Brussels and in our government”, next to the flag of the Soviet Union. The photo of the banner was widely distributed on social networks, triggering a strong reaction from kyiv.
Warsaw “notes with the greatest concern the emergence of anti-Ukrainian slogans and others glorifying Vladimir Putin and the war he is waging, during recent blockades by farmers,” the Polish ministry said in a statement, stressing that Such actions give “a bad image of Poland”.
On Wednesday, a local police spokeswoman told AFP that “the banner and the flag” had been “seized”. “The person who was driving the vehicle has been identified,” she assured. A criminal investigation into promoting a fascist or totalitarian regime and inciting hatred, an offense punishable in Poland by three years in prison, was opened by the police. The Polish Minister for Secret Services, Tomasz Siemoniak, described the banner as “scandalous” and the incident as “provocation”. “These are shameful words that absolutely do not correspond to the position of the state or the feelings of our citizens,” said Tomasz Siemoniak on Radio Zet.
Commercial disputes
Ukraine, once nicknamed “the breadbasket of Europe”, saw its agricultural sector upended by the Russian invasion, with many Black Sea export hubs blocked and farmland rendered unusable by the fighting .
Poland has been among Ukraine’s biggest supporters since the launch of the Russian offensive in February 2022, but their relations have been poisoned in recent months by commercial disputes. Polish farmers began a new protest movement on Tuesday by blocking around a hundred roads in their country and border crossing points with Ukraine, denouncing in particular agri-food imports from Ukraine deemed “uncontrolled” and European agricultural policy. . These new protest actions come a few weeks after the end of a similar blockade of the border by Polish truckers.