Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has presented state awards to a Polish journalist and a volunteer medic in Lublin. He thanked the Polish people, noting that any challenges on their shared path were "nothing compared to the strength between Ukrainians and Poles".
Quote from Zelenskyy: "I am proud that Ukraine has such a strong neighbour. I would like to thank you. I would like to express my gratitude to the entire Polish people, to all the people who, from the very first days, opened up their families and their homes [to refugees], opened their hearts and helped [us].
Any challenges on our common path are nothing compared to the strength between our peoples."
Details: While in Lublin on his way back from a working visit to Canada, Zelenskyy presented state awards to Polish journalist Bianka Zalewska and volunteer medic Damian Duda.
Bianka Zalewska, a journalist for TVN Discovery Poland, has been working in the Anti-Terrorist Operation zone in Donbas since 2014, where she was severely injured. She collected and delivered humanitarian aid to Ukraine as a volunteer. Since the outbreak of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, she has provided significant assistance to units of Ukraine's Armed Forces; as a volunteer, she has helped transport seriously ill children to hospitals in Poland.
Rescue medic Damian Duda has assembled a team of medics who have been purchasing essential medicines with their own money and travelling to Ukraine to provide emergency medical care and evacuate wounded frontline soldiers to a stabilisation centre. He also set up a charity to fund the purchase of medicines for volunteer medical teams in Ukraine.
Bianka Zalewska was awarded the Order of Princess Olha, 2nd Class, and Damian Duda was awarded the Order of Merit, 3rd Class, by presidential decrees.
The grain crisis has recently put relations between Ukraine and Poland under enormous strain. Poland reacted angrily to Zelenskyy's speech at the UN, and Ukraine has responded similarly to the Polish president’s recent remarks comparing Ukraine to a drowning man and the prime minister’s statement on arms supplies.
The tension between Warsaw and Kyiv is related to unilateral Polish restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural products and Ukraine's actions in response.
Ukraine has proposed an export control plan for four crops – wheat, maize, sunflower and rape – to the European Commission and Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania to protect their domestic markets.
Despite this, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia decided to introduce unilateral restrictions. In response, Ukraine has filed a complaint against these three countries to the World Trade Organisation.
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838h920 on September 24th, 2023 at 17:18 UTC »
What happened:
Poland, like every other country in the world protects its food industry, like farmers, because that's important for the independence of a country.
Ukraine has a lot of food at standards below what's allowed in the EU and due to export restrictions caused by the war they needed an alternate route for export.
Poland allowed Ukraine to export food through Poland to other countries, but they were not allowed to be sold there. The middleman did so anyways.
Poland banned food from Ukraine to stop this and that set off a spat between the 2 countries.
Now Poland opened a food corridor for Ukrainian exports, likely with much more oversight to stop people from selling the food in Poland.
In my opinion neither Poland nor Ukraine were at fault for the spat. It's the middleman that created the shitty situation. Poland cannot allow their farmers to fail because the industry is essential for it, while Ukraine really needs more ways to export their food. I'm happy to see that they've found a solution to the problem that makes both sides happy.
RedditIsShit23-1081 on September 24th, 2023 at 17:00 UTC »
As an ethnic Ukrainian, I am very happy to see both Ukraine and Poland actively trying to put their differences aside.
davesnot_heere on September 24th, 2023 at 16:38 UTC »
For a comedian he’s a hell of a politician/ statesman