Polish Truckers Lift Border Blockade With Ukraine

Polish truckers have lifted their blockade of checkpoints on the border with Ukraine after reaching an agreement with their government, putting an end for now to a two-month protest that has delayed tons of goods from reaching Europe and strained the Ukrainian economy.

Under the agreement, reached on Tuesday afternoon, the truckers will suspend the blockade while they hold further talks with the Polish government to reach a final deal by March 1. A few hours later, Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service announced that traffic had resumed at the three border crossings that remained blocked.

A free flow of goods “is vital in times of war, especially for the supply of the military and humanitarian goods, for exports and for the functioning of our economy,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, said in a statement welcoming the agreement.

Since the war began in 2022, Ukraine has mainly used overland routes for its exports because of Russia’s attempt to blockade the Black Sea. But Polish truckers have complained about what they see as unfair and cheap competition from their Ukrainian counterparts, threatening their own profits. Starting in early November, they blocked several checkpoints, forcing thousands of Ukrainian trucks to wait for days at the border.

The Polish and Ukrainian governments had been holding regular talks to try to resolve the problem, without much success. At times, the blockade had strained relations with Poland, one of Ukraine’s strongest wartime backers.

Poland’s infrastructure minister, Dariusz Klimczak, told a news conference on Tuesday afternoon that the main points of the agreement included talks to review a European Union free-trade agreement with Ukraine that Polish truckers say has harmed them, and tighter controls on the paperwork of Ukrainian truckers.