Thousands of enraged farmers converged on the Polish capital on Wednesday to protest EU environmental regulations and low-cost imports from Ukraine and other countries outside the bloc.
Farmers gathered outside the prime minister’s office in Warsaw, blowing horns, throwing smoke bombs and firecrackers, and igniting fires, while others blocked highways across the country with their tractors.
Polish farmers have also been blocking border crossings with Ukraine since last month in protest of what they call unfair competition from Ukrainian commodities entering the Polish market.
Russia’s invasion has destroyed Ukraine’s agriculture industry, once dubbed “Europe’s breadbasket”.
Many of its major export routes through the Black Sea have been blocked and its farmland rendered unusable by warfare.
In a bid to help Kyiv economically, the European Union in 2022 scrapped tariffs on Ukrainian goods transiting the 27-nation bloc by road.
But logistical problems mean a lot of the Ukrainian cereal exports destined for non-EU countries have accumulated in Poland, undercutting local producers.
