#Ukraine "Radio NV" interview with #Poland Piotr Kulpa, now lecturer at Kyiv university, about the situation on the Poland-Ukraine border. Summary of what he says:
The ongoing blockade is disastrous, but it has very concrete origins.
It started when Ukraine introduced two electronic queues, one for loaded (slow) and one (fast) for empty trucks. Polish trucks were directed by Ukrainian customs to the slow one and waited for 12 days on average.
That is, unless they paid a bribe. Given 100-200 EUR bribe, percentage of drivers willing to pay it and 900'000 trucks crossing per year, Kulpa estimates, profits of the customs go into millions.
This is disastrous for Polish truckers, who already lost routes to Russia and Kazakhstan, and it was the last drop that caused the blockade.
Polish government inaction has a number of factors: the new coalition government after recent elections hasn't been formed, and the existing (PiS) doesn't want to leave remembered by police pacification of the protesters as its last action.
There's also purely human aspect to the PiS inaction here: they're disappointed. In the first months of war Poland went way ahead of the rest of the coalition, risking a lot, quietly passing Ukraine heavy weapon long before anyone did and nearly emptying their ammunition stores. In response, as they feel, they got chilled reaction from Kyiv.
Kulpa several times highlights that while the blockade is a disaster for both sides, the root cause is an extreme corruption racket scheme on the Ukrainian side of the border. Any time anyone is asking in Ukraine don't Poles care about the war effort, Kulpa says, they should in the first place direct the question to the corrupt Ukrainian officials on the border, because all cost of bribes was ultimately added to the cost of goods paid by Ukrainians and their army.
Of course, Russia is an ultimate beneficent of any conflict between Ukraine and Poland. Russia, and the "old Europe" lobbies who want the return of the pre-war business opportunities with Russia. And it's true that pro-Russian "Konfederacja" party ultimately joined the campaign. But you didn't need even a single Russian hand in this conflict, it all originated in the massive corruption scheme on the Ukrainian border.
Kulpa says he talked to drivers who waited for 10 days in the Ukrainian queue only to be pulled out, and sent to the end, making his wait time over 20 days. The treatment of Polish drivers on the Ukrainian border was extremely demeaning, yet nobody on the Ukrainian cared about it while the drivers appealed and protested long before the blockade.
Kulpa says the critical and required step to open the border is the removal of the corruption schemes on the Ukrainian side, which in the first place harms Ukrainian society as the recipient of the goods.
@kravietz - and as far as I know there is also the problem of Ukrainian drivers transporting goods inside the EU (cabotage), which they are not allowed to do.
@kravietz - it gets complicated, as Polish firms also employ Ukrainian drivers living in Poland, who could compete with Ukrainian drivers living in Ukraine, provided they didn't need to wait 12 days to return, but cannot go to Ukraine, because they are not exempt from draft... Also Ukrainians are registering companies in Poland to provide services in the EU... The core of the issue is that one way or another, Polish truckers and freight companies, like Polish farmers, are losing livelihoods.
People in comments (99% in Ukrainian) say that "Radio NV" should now to ensure balance of opinions take an interview with Ukrainian high-rank customs 😆
@kravietz Balance of opinions or to allow them to respond in the same medium? (I don't read Ukrainian worth a damn, so would find it hard to tell myself.)
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