that concerns ukraine. the last demands are purely political demands to the european union. we are talking about the fact that the european union is reducing the total volume of agricultural subsidies, primarily for animal husbandry, from year to year. we are talking about the fact that the european union has introduced new regulations regarding environmental friendliness and environmental protection. there is a certain directive that obliges farmers to keep a certain amount of land unsown in order to preserve ecological diversity, that is, those things that do not apply to ukraine at all, nevertheless, in the general list of demands is exactly that, and today polish farmers use blocking the border with ukraine as a mechanism to influence the european union on brussels, which is absolutely unacceptable.

simply because, i repeat once again, poland is, well, well , a great partner of ours, poland has always actively supported ukraine in the fight against russian aggression, and now the things that we see, they are, in my opinion , well, in an obvious way, in doing non-competitive methods, the competitive struggle that they actually lead on the intra-european agricultural market, that is, ukraine is essentially a hostage of these circumstances, so absolutely, because i repeat once again, 2/3 of ukraine's requirements do not apply at all, that is, when we repeat once again, let's see, these are all requirements to the general prescriptions of brussels regarding production of agricultural products on the territory of the european union. ugh. olezhe, let's talk more about economic losses, because we talked about the fact that by the end of the month... the country

will lose almost 8 billion hryvnias due to this blockade, globally, which could be financial consequences for the budget of ukraine? well , look, i repeat once again, poland is big, the gate of the union, and i would say that here is not even a purely economic side of the issue, although indeed, at the present moment, up to 10 billion a month we... lose from its supply of those or other goods, from non-payment of customs payments, from exports, imports, we are talking about the fact that poland is also a place through which a sufficiently large number of military and technical goods enters, by the way, when we look at the structure of our imports from poland, then there is a torrent of fate not agricultural products

, there is a lot of fuel, there is a lot of lubricants, there is a lot of food, cars, household chemicals, er, agricultural things , that is, we are talking about plant protection products, agricultural chemistry, mineral fertilizers, that is, there is a small amount of food, ukraine indeed supplies a certain amount of grain to the european union through poland, but the president rightly said that there , again, the share in relation to the total volume of ukraine's trade with the european union is not so great, so there is not much economy there, and here i agree with president, there there is more politics, there is a way to press through ukraine on pan-european prescriptions. well, how can you influence this situation, here is the announced meeting of the coordination platform on this issue in the european commission, what leverage do they have and whether? is it possible and

will it be effective if ukraine blocks polish goods there in response? well, look, you have to be very careful about those things, because these are sensitive topics enough, well, first of all , in order to achieve something , to agree on something, you have to have such a desire, well, how minimum. why am i talking about this? as of today, you remember, last year there were, er, such, i would say, a coordinated action. the five european countries that blocked the borders, and the slovaks blocked, and the hungarians, and the romanians, and the bulgarians, the bulgarians to a lesser extent, but they also expressed their positions, at the moment there are no problems with them, why? a mechanism has been found there, i.e. there is an agreement in principle on the licensing of ukrainian agricultural products that are supplied to this country, i.e. a pre-agreed general the volume of exports that ukraine can...

send to this country, er, and for the volume of these exports, ukrainian, er, the ukrainian government issues licenses to its own producers, this is a way of self-limitation, er, the issues are resolved there, and by the way, within the scope of the proposals that were made to the poles, it was, well, to use this experience in the negotiations and also to build our relations within the framework of issuing licenses to ukrainian producers for the supply of agricultural products through poland, which is contracted, that is, there is a mechanism, the mechanism works with the romanians , by the way, look again, what is the situation here. this traffic is huge , which goes through poland, it is a very large income for the poles, because it is also service services, it is also motels, it is also the sale of fuel lubricants, er, by the way, the romanians saw all this very well and

look, now, in three shifts, they are very actively building from constantia, from bucharest towards the ukrainian border. a huge multi-lane autobahn in order to draw this traffic away from poland if possible, well, that is, in reality, well, let 's be honest, this is the klondike, that is, it is the story, when they go to a meeting with ukraine and try to help, and you hint that polish farmers simply do not want to look for ways to solve this situation, you know, i repeat again, there is more politics, that is, from my point of view, but frankly speaking for all those things, those problems that are being put forward today regarding ukrainian agricultural products, they are not the main, uh, let's say, the main russian force, the main motive that causes the protests. and the politicians in warsaw are directly the key to solving the problem there? you know, well, first of all,

if you and i look carefully at poland, there, uh, agrarian political forces were never in the opposition, that is, they could not be part of the ruling coalition, but... the influence on the appointment of the minister of agrarian policy was always very great, and the minister in poland of agrarian policy always had extremely large powers, was very authoritative. uh, why? there are 3 million farms in poland , that's for 40 million people, so calculate, imagine, the electoral field, er, of farmers who are quite seriously forming, including the all-polish political, political agenda, and when we talk to you about... polish farmers, you have to understand that no polish politician will be a political kamikaze and go against polish farmers, so when we talk to you, look at when the railway blockades started , the polish police

managed the situation within two hours, and the trains were the last to leave, why, because the main part of oil products is from poland, and ukraine has... honest contracts with orlen go along the railway, and there, well, no one will give the opportunity to block oil business polish, of course, that is, just look here , how the polish police worked very clearly and quickly, without question, there are some problems with the blocking, the ukrainian railway reported that everything is going according to schedule there, at the same time that we are talking about the highways , who go through agricultural mines, there are polish policemen standing on the sidelines and looking at it and... interfering, why, well, really, it’s not just that it happens, yes, really, they think that there is no coordinated policy there, oh well, i thank you for joining, we will follow the development of events, on today a complete blockade was announced , we will see what will happen there and what will be agreed on in the eu or not, thank you for joining our broadcast, oleg penzyn,

executive director of the economic discussion club, was a guest of freedom of the morning, about the situation on the polish-ukrainian border , at all checkpoints, let's talk further to... our broadcast is joined by andrii demchenko, spokesperson of the state border service of ukraine. mr. andriy, i welcome you to our broadcast, thank you for joining, i want to clarify with you right away whether the polish side began to block railways, freight hubs, the beginning of what was announced for today? well, actually, we do not have confirmation from our polish colleagues that today there would be any blocking actions in other directions, well, first of all. i can point out, especially in the direction of the checkpoints for automobiles, because in general, out of nine checkpoints on the border with poland, six of them

are being blocked by polish farmers at this moment and as of yesterday, let me remind you. these are directions checkpoints yagodyn, ustilukh, ughryniv, shegyny, ravaruska, krakow, there are still three directions left, but... again, which i can remind you that each direction, each checkpoint has its own characteristics regarding the categories of transport that they can pass , somewhere... cargo vehicles weighing more than 7.5 tons can cross the border, i.e. such trucks that carry goods, somewhere only empty cargo vehicles can cross the border, and somewhere cargo vehicles less than 7.5 ton, i.e. such small trucks that transport goods, so in fact , at the present time, most checkpoints on the border with poland are blocked. and especially four directions - jagodyn, shegin, ravaruska and krakowiec, the largest

checkpoints where trucks weighing more than 7.5 tons can cross the border , transporting goods both towards poland and following them to our country, if the situation changes and we will have information from our polish colleagues that the other three directions will also be blocked, we we will definitely mention this, but at the moment we have not received such information from the polish circles, of course we have seen information and a statement from polish farmers that they plan to make a complete blockade on the 20th, but how will it take place and is it really will happen, of course , we don't have such information at the moment, mr. andrii, can you tell us now how many trucks are standing in queues at these blocked checkpoints, and in total on all these six directions, as of this morning. in queues is on the territory of poland with the possibility of crossing the border

towards ukraine, there are a little more than 2,500 cargo vehicles, the most in front of the krakow checkpoint, there are about 900 trucks and in front of the berry checkpoint, there are about 600 cargo vehicles, the least in the direction of the ustiluk checkpoint and in hryniv, but again, this is taking into account the peculiarities of the categories. vehicles that can cross the border in these two directions, so there are at least hundreds of cars in the direction of the ravarusk and sheghina checkpoints, but next to schergami, on the territory of poland, of course, in each of these directions we have a significant decrease in the number of freight vehicles that cross the border per day, especially so critically, this is in the direction of the shegyny and jagodyn checkpoints. if

we talk more objectively about the latter, i will remind you again that this is the largest such infrastructural direction, which can cross the border with about 1,200-1,400 freight vehicles in both directions per day. instead, only 70 cargo vehicles crossed it in the past day were followed to ukraine and not a single truck was followed in the direction of poland. i would also like to add in this direction that even on saturday the polish farmers refused to let vehicles, cargo vehicles in this direction at all, it was like that until the end of saturday, it was like that during sunday, and only on the night from sunday to monday, somewhere around three in the morning, they renewed the possibility of crossing the border by freight vehicles, the passage of freight vehicles to the border, until... several trucks per hour, and in fact, we have 70 for yesterday trucks that were proceeding in the direction of ukraine,

on the other hand, traffic from ukraine to poland in this direction remains completely blocked, that is, during these days, you mean any kind of heavy trucks, not only those that transport agricultural products there, right, in general, uh, probably the information from the volunteers is also related to this , including the fact that the trucks with what is needed for the military to... the front with this humanitarian and military aid, they were blocked for a while, but today our the correspondent said that, specifically, if we talk about the situation of the volunteer nazar smik, his trucks have already crossed the border, so whether in the future, do you see the risks of the fact that once again all the same trucks, or also passenger vehicles, i don’t know buses there, because also about the buses there was some information on social networks, they may be blocked by polish protesters, well, fortunately we see that the traffic is easy... cars and buses, it is happening, of course we paid attention to the information that was on

social networks, which kind of traffic is blocked for buses that follow in the direction of ukraine , but what we see directly at the checkpoints are those buses that cross the border towards poland, the polish side accepts them, and we also see that buses from poland also follow to ukraine, that is, the polish side of their production. and in fact, of course, the bus also has to go through places where polish farmers block traffic on access roads on highways. andriy demchenko, spokesperson of the state border service of ukraine, was a guest of our broadcast. such was this issue of morning freedom, subscribe to the radio liberty channel, we are with you every weekday from 9:00 here on this channel, also on the air of the tv channel, join in

the comments. my name is kateryna nekrech, and i and our entire team wish you a peaceful day and see you soon. well, well, we will continue the topic that our colleagues from radio liberty just raised, namely the situation on the border with poland, president zelenskyi has already commented on it, it has already gone beyond ordinary misunderstandings, the situation continues for too long and causes too much damage , and now to us to... mykola knyazhytskyi, people's deputy of ukraine, is involved. mr. mykola, good morning. congratulations. mr. mykola, you are currently in poland, what is actually being said in poland about the situation at the border, is it in the focus of media attention, and how is it being commented on? well, unfortunately, no. uh , the situation in poland is very difficult, because, unfortunately, all these protests, which have no

real weight, because ukrainian grain does not stay in poland, it leaves. transit, there are actually no facts that any bad grain or other agricultural products delivered or sold in poland, this protest at the border rather became such a political tool because different politicians are involved, trying to settle scores one after the other, sometimes they are from the same party, sometimes from different parties, they support this movement polish farmers, polish farmers mainly demand that... european farmers are not to introduce various restrictions related to environmental policy in the european union. the ukrainian border is rather chosen for to draw more attention to this, because, as the poles say, if you close the border, everyone writes about it, but if you just drive around the cities, no one may notice it. the ukrainian issue is raised here, but not

very actively. instead, there are quite a few provocateurs who try to join these protests and hype. precisely anti-ukrainian hysteria, there is also a lot of anti-ukrainian hysteria in polish social networks, which, as my polish colleagues tell me, is primarily spread by russian special services, and the purpose of which is to quarrel ukraine and poland , firstly, and secondly, to dismember poland itself, we remember medvedev's plan, which he published about the dismemberment of poland, we know the statements of polish government officials and the minister of defense of poland and other government officials that. .. poland may be attacked by russia in three years, and it seems to me that russia is currently testing its influence on polish society in order to sow it with dislike, negativity towards ukrainians, to divide it, to make poles not ready to defend their country in the event of an attack, and unfortunately, these farm ones protests became a tool for this. and another

rather important aspect, we are talking about our membership in the european union, and we have to face the truth . it is not surprising that the biggest debates we have here can be with the poles, which we can turn both to the benefit of our cooperation and to our detriment, because the structure of our economy is very similar, and the poles are worried that we can occupy those european markets , where polish products are now present, the polish authorities want to distance themselves from these protests, because they will include local the elections in april, and they hope that these protests, so to speak, will somehow be absorbed by themselves from... on the one hand, the current polish government supports ukraine, supports ukraine externally, supports ukraine in cooperation with nato, in obtaining weapons, in the construction of democracy, on the other hand, turns a blind eye, unfortunately, to this hysteria, which can significantly worsen our relations. mr. mykola, i would like to draw your attention to the fact that we do not really hear much from the participants of the protest in ukraine,

i.e., and also, i do not see that the ukrainian authorities are listening in on them somehow, i.e., for example, from president zelensky's comment... we only hear an appeal to such a sense of guilt that we have a situation on the russian border where we are holding back the advance of russian troops, it looks natural on the one hand, but on the other hand, if polish farmers, we literally talked about this with mark sierant yesterday , for example, lose when there is an export of grain through poland, they lose up to half the price of their own grain, then this is a serious argument that must also be worked with, if russia has, if if ukraine has positive, negative the current balance of trade with poland, that is, it is profitable for poland to export, for example, dairy products, there are probably some economic advantages. in order to appease the polish farmers as well, why don't we work with them, or does it just appear that the ukrainian government does not work with polish farmers?

you know, it's difficult to work with polish farmers, because i don't see any logical grounds for their protests now, because they don't lose anything from ukrainian grain, it goes further and in transit, they claim that some of them are returned, there is no fact of the return of this grain to poland... no, the lithuanians, for example, say that they did not record this, and the poles referred precisely to the fact that supposedly grain is returned from lithuania that is not sold there, and then are resold to poland, the lithuanian authorities do not record this , there are a lot of myths, therefore, first of all , we definitely need to work with polish society, because, strangely enough, polish society, well, it is natural, the farmers are poles, they support them, almost 80% supports, despite the fact that the requirements for ukraine, from my point of view, is not fair , and not only from my point of view... the numbers speak for it. in the future, ukraine can indeed be a competitor of poland on the polish and european markets, but not now. we are not their competitor on the polish market.

there is nothing that could cause these protests. we now expect that this agreement will be extended in brussels with certain restrictions, that is why the ukrainian authorities are not very actively interfering in what is happening, but what is missing is explanatory work in polish society because russia... is actively using social networks, fanning anti-ukrainian sentiments, this can also affect our refugees, and we see such provocative posters at some demonstrations of polish farmers, although, as i already said, there is no reason for this, look, well there are no such protests in romania or even in hungary or slovakia, they are not in better conditions, and for some reason there is nothing there, because it is not politicized there, romanian politicians do not come to the border there and do not encourage. romanian farmers to protest, on the contrary, they explain to them why transit would be beneficial for them and for the poles. here, the poles are hostages of their political confrontation,

which is fueled by russia, and ukraine does not act actively enough to explain to polish society the falsity of such steps, which are emotionally, on the one hand, understandable, if i were a pole, i probably would too supported the poles, but i would at least see if ukraine harms what... there may be benefits from ukraine, another danger that when you tell them about what we are at war they are now saying and it is also blowing up on social media ok we have supported you for so long that is enough we have our own problems now don't use the argument that you are at war because that is not an argument for us , you are allegedly twisting yourself in this way, and it hurts, because we are actually really at war, and our economy is really suffering losses, so the situation, the situation is not simple, i believe that it will be resolved and it is necessary to.. to make an effort, but first of all we need to talk to nato and nato countries about what this protest is weakens our economy because they block , as you can see, not only grain, they block

everything, including polish goods going to ukraine, and it hurts our economy, we don't have money to get our army, it's blocking our border with nato, that's what the russians want, and here we have to get the attention of our other nato allies to help us work with poland on this too, and that, oddly enough, will help polish politicians, which is great realize, but cannot go against public opinion, do everything to these the protests stopped as quickly as possible, and the fact that our government needs to conduct active negotiations with the poles regarding our further european integration and that such contacts exist, but they are not enough, it is true, mr. mykola, you are talking about anti-ukrainian hysteria , which is in social networks and is fueled by the russians, we have no doubts about this and we are witnesses to it, but... at the same time, there is a lot of anti-polish, anti-polish rhetoric that is in ukrainian social networks, that is, various quotes were mentioned there, i don’t know, with

kobzar shevchenko, a certain taras bulba, and so on, and suddenly it turns out that ukrainians actually know very little about modern poland, and in general live in the same way in the captivity of some stereotypes from the soviet era. yes, you are absolutely right. first of all, it is necessary to understand that anti-polish hysteria will not give us anything. we need the support of the poles in european integration, in obtaining weapons, in access to the border to be open, and for our refugees, and we are sincerely grateful to the poles, who have done and continue to do a lot for this, and incitement of anti-polish hysteria is exactly what the russians want, because if the poles will block our european integration, integration with nato, under the influence of this, which we ourselves will encourage, then this means that we will become an instrument of... russian propaganda and russian struggle with us, we need to find a way out in dialogue, we need to find a way out in the fact that we look for common ground and jointly move towards the european union, and all this

antipo must definitely be stopped, because it is done by absolutely irresponsible people who do not they don't even think about the future of ukraine, in poland they don't think about the future of poland, which russia also wants to take over. and in the end, i will ask the actual approach of local elections, to what extent do they affect the situation with polish farmers now, or are they actually using this now for some kind of revenge at the regional level? well, i will tell you that many parties use it, there is a confederation, and there are ruling parties. among which there is, for example, the peasant party, uh, also wants to use it, and people in other parties of the coalition, who also take participation in local elections, they do not use it, but they do not actively calm these processes, they are generally afraid to interfere in it, so that it does not harm them, it is definitely the polish local elections that will be held in april that will affect it, the poles really hope that it somehow it will suck in a few weeks, or because of some big

crisis, or, well, or vice versa, they say that the peasants will have to go to cultivate the land, they will not be able to block it, but excuse me, then there will be transporters, where again the confederation and the russians will come there the provocateurs and everyone else will continue to do the same, waiting while the farmers work in the fields, that's why it's really such a big problem, and you have to remember that after the local elections, they will also have the european parliament elections, and then the presidential elections, so hope that simple elections will solve this problem, i would not put them. can silence it, but it will be very difficult to completely solve it in this way, therefore the support of the western allies, other nato allies, the european union, a serious explanatory work in polish society , which is not carried out at all, i talked about it a lot, we spend money on all these freedoms, pretending that we are explaining something to someone, we are not seen anywhere, except for the work of the ambassador, who really works a lot and some our ministers, yesterday

we talked with, for example, minister skolskyi. with the ukrainian-polish group, with the deputies of the verkhovna rada, i want to thank the minister for this communication and understanding of the situation, well, there are individual ministers who are engaged in this, at the state level, of course, we we pay too little attention to it and take it lightly. well, thank you very much for this conversation, mykola knyazhytskyi, people's deputy of ukraine, joined us from poland and we talked about the situation at the border, because the situation already requires serious attention of the ukrainian government, because now from this situation. puts russia first, and no one needs this tension on the border, now we are gradually moving on to our news, there is literally a minute left, during this time i wanted to remind you that we continue to collect funds for of the charity fund of iryna koval , our presenter, and we are actually calling to join

our fundraising for... our defenders of the 141st brigade, they are in the orichiv direction, you know about it, zaporizhzhia region, it is not easy there, and they are very, very , very necessary for infantry reconnaissance, for the successful execution of combat missions, high-quality equipment, namely walkie-talkies, batteries for them, starlinks, binoculars, rangefinders, scopes, drone detection detectors, and much more, this is a tool that allows our soldiers not to take risks with your life, remotely conduct reconnaissance, remotely observe the enemy. behind the enemy and inflict damage on him remotely, in a word we are collecting a whole million, we have already collected a little bit, we collected with you, yesterday we collected more than 30 00, we are very grateful to everyone who sent their relatives some savings, money for this collection of ours, we will try to finish it as soon as possible , collect, and we will have the next collection, no, don't even think that we will stop there, gentlemen, well, at this hour, i already want to pass. word

in fact, kateryna shiropoyas, who is already ready to join you. greetings, it's news time on the spresso tv channel, i'll tell you about the main events of this hour in a moment. it's news time. kateryna shiropoyas works in the studio on the espresso tv channel. at night, over dnipropetrovsk region, our defenders shot down two shaheds. in the dnipro district , three summer houses and two cars were damaged by falling debris. this was announced by the head of the region serhiy lysak in the marganets community on...