Ukraine and Poland Trade Blows, Raising Concerns About Key Support for War Against Russia

Support for Ukraine is becoming a central issue in Poland, as the ruling party in Warsaw seeks to shore up votes ahead of next month’s elections by taking aim at its crucial alliance with Kyiv—a move that could have huge geopolitical consequences for the fight against Russian aggression. 

The shift has worried backers of Ukraine in the U.S. and across Europe. Poland shares a long border with Ukraine and has been a lynchpin of support for its embattled neighbor. 

Over the past nineteen months, Poland has welcomed far more Ukrainian refugees than any other country; more than 1.6 million Ukrainians have registered to live there since the war began. Poland has also supplied weapons to Ukraine, trained its troops, and served as a critical transit route for supplies from other backers of Ukraine, including the U.S. 

But with national elections scheduled for October 15 and Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, the PiS, worried about the threat from an anti-Ukraine far-right party, the government has taken a more confrontational approach towards Kyiv. 

Its goal? To neutralize support for radical right-wing players such as the Konfederacja party, which has criticized Poland's leaders for acting like “servants of the Ukrainian people,” and called for a watering down of support for Ukraine. 

How a friendship soured

The central issue is a controversy over Ukrainian grain supplies, an issue that flared up this month following the July collapse of a U.N.-brokered agreement that allowed Kyiv to keep shipping grain to the Middle East and Africa via the Black Sea.

With those routes closed, the European Union lifted curbs on Ukrainian grain heading into the EU over land, through Poland and other countries. That prompted fury among farmers in Poland, who are worried about the impact on their profits. 

Earlier in the war, similar EU measures to help Ukraine ship its grain overland led to an influx of supplies to Poland and other countries—bringing down local prices by as much as half, according to reports. Polish farmers—and many rural voters—now fear a new plunge in prices for their grain. 

That’s why the ruling PiS party has responded to this month's developments with anger, and with its own national restrictions on Ukrainian grain. Ukraine has replied with an official complaint against Poland at the World Trade Organization. 

A fight at the U.N.

Last week the two countries’ leaders joined the fray. At the U.N.’s annual gathering of global leaders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used his speech at the General Assembly to take a veiled swipe at Poland. 

“It is alarming to see how some in Europe, some of our friends in Europe, play out solidarity in a political theater—making a thriller from the grain,” Zelenskyy said. 

It may have sounded vague, and Zelenskyy didn’t call out Poland by name, but for Poles the implication was clear—and the response from Warsaw was swift. 

“I want to tell President Zelenskyy never to insult Poles again, as he did recently during his speech at the U.N.,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at an election rally following Zelenskyy’s speech.

Only three days before, Poland’s President, Andrzej Duda, had given a staunchly pro-Ukraine speech at the U.N., blasting what he called the “brutal Russian aggression.”

But Morawiecki was reading from a different script. “The Polish people will never allow this to happen, and defending the good name of Poland is not only my duty and honor, but also the most important task of the Polish government.” 

It’s not just about grain

Already, the tensions are spilling into other aspects of Poland’s support for Ukraine. 

Case in point: weapons shipments. Poland has supplied more than $4.5 billion in humanitarian, financial and military aid to Ukraine since the Russian invasion. But hours after Zelenskyy’s U.N. speech, Morawiecki, the Polish Prime Minister, told a local broadcaster that the country is “no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons.”

The revelation prompted concern across Europe and in the U.S., and a scramble to do damage control by President Duda, who insisted that his colleague’s remarks had been misinterpreted “in the worst possible way.” 

“In my opinion, the prime minister meant that we won’t be transferring to Ukraine the new weaponry that we’re currently buying as we modernize the Polish army,” he said, insisting that older weapons would continue to be supplied and Poland would honor its agreements with Ukraine. 

Even support for refugees is coming under a newly harsh light. Poland hasn’t just opened its borders since the Russian invasion, it has also introduced policies to waive residency requirements for Ukrainians, granting them work permits and allowing free access for Ukrainian refugees to Polish schools and medical services. 

But as the ruling party looks to hold on to power, it has indicated that these benefits could be rolled back. 

“These regulations will simply expire next year,” Polish government spokesman Piotr Muller told local television earlier this month. “I think the regulations will not be extended to a large extent.”

Whatever happens, the upshot of this war of words is clear: two longtime friends are fighting—and a bulwark of support for Ukraine is in question.