A month-long blockade by Polish truckers on the border with Ukraine is delaying deliveries of essential items to the battlefront, and there is no end in sight to the dispute.
Truckers began blocking roads to border crossings on Nov. 6, creating lines that stretched for nearly 20 miles and lasted for weeks in frigid temperatures, and hampered the transportation of pickup trucks, turnstiles, night vision equipment, drone parts and other medical materials and supplies.
Polish drivers are protesting competition from their Ukrainian counterparts, who they say are undermining their businesses amid relaxed European Union transport rules.
“This means that the Russian military will have the ability to kill Ukrainian soldiers and terrorize civilians for several more weeks,” said Oleksandr Zadorozhnyi, operational director of the KOLO foundation, which helps the Ukrainian military with technology and cannot smuggle materials through.
Protesters reportedly deny having withheld aid, and the head of a truckers’ association in western Poland said there is no light at the end of the tunnel as authorities are paying little attention.
Polish protesters argue their livelihoods are at stake after the European Union relaxed some transport rules and Ukrainian truckers undermined their businesses. AP Rescuers work at the site of a Ukrainian apartment building damaged by a Russian missile attack on December 8. via REUTERS Ukraine has redoubled its efforts to erase all traces of Soviet influence after the Russian invasion almost two years ago. SERGEY DOLZHENKO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
As the war rages on, Ukrainian authorities are also fighting plans to vote in illegally annexed territories in Russian elections scheduled for March. The vote could keep Russian President Vladimir Putin in power until at least 2030.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine is calling on the international community to impose sanctions on those who participated in the elections.
Separately, Ukraine continued its effort to eliminate Russian influence on the home front with its campaign to remove Soviet-era monuments. A statue of a Soviet field commander from the Russian Civil War was removed Saturday as “decommunization” efforts were renewed ahead of the two-year mark of the war.
With postal cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn