Ukraine and Poland said on Friday that they are ready to try to resolve problems in relations created, in particular, by the blocking of border crossings by Polish carriers, Reuters reports.

Radoslav Sikorskyi and Volodymyr ZelenskyiPhoto: Handout / AFP / Profimedia

The commitment was made after a meeting in Kyiv between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, and his Polish counterpart, Radoslav Sikorskyi, who was on his first official trip abroad.

Ukraine considered Poland one of its closest allies in the European Union, and Poland provided Ukraine with humanitarian and military aid and hosted millions of Ukrainian refugees.

But relations were marred by protests by Polish transporters who blocked several border crossings, which Kyiv saw as a lack of initiative by the former Polish nationalist government to solve the problem.

At a joint press conference, Kuleba said that the visit of Sikorski, a member of Poland’s new centrist pro-European cabinet, showed that there would be meaningful and mutually respectful dialogue between the countries.

Kuleba noted that “we started with the fact that we need to solve problems in bilateral relations. “And there is a desire to solve these problems on both sides. We need to sit down and talk in detail to find balanced, legally correct solutions,” said Kuleba.

“Between neighbors there are always some issues that need to be resolved, related to history or current events,” he said.

During a press conference in the Ukrainian capital, which last night was the object of another attack by Russian drones, an alarm sounded about an airstrike.

“This alarm you hear is why I am here. It is unacceptable… In this titanic struggle, Poland is on your side,” Sikorski said.

After the meeting in Kyiv, Poland’s deputy minister of infrastructure said on Friday that he hopes that the issue of truckers’ protests on the border with Ukraine will be resolved by the end of the year.

Since November 6, Polish drivers have blocked several checkpoints on the border with Ukraine, dissatisfied with “unfair competition” from companies in the neighboring country due to the liberalization of border transportation rules by the European Union.