Poland says no longer arming Ukraine as grain dispute threatens key alliance
- Poland has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters and weapons suppliers after Russia invaded in February 2022
- Tensions sparked by Poland’s ban on Ukrainian grain imports to protect the interests of its farmers have intensified in recent days
Poland said it has stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine, further escalating a dispute over grain shipments that’s threatening to break a key alliance in Kyiv’s fight against Russia.
“We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in an interview with Polsat television, in response to a question from a reporter on whether Warsaw would continue to support Kyiv despite the grain-exports disagreement.
He said his government has no intention to “risk the security of Ukraine” and won’t interfere with arms shipments from other countries through the military hub that’s grown up in the town of Rzeszow. He noted that Poland is also benefiting financially from the transit.
The dispute cast sudden doubt on the unity that had defined the neighbours’ relationship before the grain dispute, a friendship that seemed to epitomise European solidarity with Ukraine against the Russian invasion.
There was no immediate response from Kyiv to Morawiecki’s comments.