"It's not Ukraine that creates problems for Polish farmers, but Russia" — Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine

Kyiv, Ukraine (Svidomi) — Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Economy Taras Kachka said that Kyiv is ready for restrictions on trade with the EU, but the bloc should ban imports of Russian grain. 

According to the Financial Times, Kachka holds Moscow responsible for the incident with scattered grain on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Ukrainian official says the Russians "are involved in cases of vandalism or sabotage that can be treated as hostile to Ukraine in general". 

The deputy Ukrainian minister adds that Kyiv supports the limits proposed by Brussels on imports of eggs, poultry and sugar and allows individual countries to close their markets to Ukrainian grain, except for further transit to other countries. 

"We voluntarily stopped allowing the export of corn to all five neighbouring member states. Despite this, we exported another new record — 15mn tonnes of corn in the calendar year 2023. So we have big demand in other states. Ukraine filled gaps in EU production," said Taras Kachka. 

It will be recalled that on March 1, Ukrainska Pravda published an investigation into the increase in trade between Poland and Russia via Belarus.  

On March 5, Lithuanian farmers, amid a partial blockade on the Polish-Lithuanian border over Ukrainian grain, said they had "problems with Russian grain, not Ukrainian grain",