Ukraine is negotiating with neighboring Slovakia and Poland to transfer customs control of grain trucks there due to the threat of Russian drone attacks on them.
This is reported by the Financial Times (FT), citing sources.
Kyiv seeks to secure Ukrainian grain trucks during a long downtime at the border.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry explained: Russia is deliberately striking at border infrastructure in order to disrupt logistics and supplies. Currently, joint control is already in effect on the border with Moldova, and negotiations on a similar format with Poland are aimed at being completed as soon as possible. The European Commission also supports the idea of moving inspections deeper into the countriesʼ territories.
The need for this is critical, because due to shelling, huge queues are forming at checkpoints — for example, on Wednesday, October 21, more than 1 200 trucks were stuck in a traffic jam at one of the checkpoints in the Volyn region.
According to the head of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy Taras Vysotsky, in September Ukraine was able to export only 2.4 million tons of agricultural products — this is only 46% of its real capacity.
However, due to the threat to border crossings, the country is forced to look for other ways to export. The power outage is also affecting queues at the border.
- Since the beginning of August, the Russians have shelled checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Moldovan border at least five times. In particular, the checkpoints "Kotlovyna", "Tabaky", "Vinohradivka — Vulcanesti", "Starokozace" and "Palanca" were under attack.
- The Russians have also attacked checkpoints on the Ukrainian-Polish border — on September 13, a Russian drone hit near the checkpoint "Yagodyn".
- At the time of the attack, a train was there, carrying high-ranking foreign officials, including European officials and former CIA Director David Petraeus.
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