Polish farmers are threatening to disrupt President Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s visit to Warsaw – the first official visit of the Kyiv leader accompanied by the First Lady since the beginning of the war. Polish farmers are unhappy that Ukrainian grain is flooding their market, and their protest movement will provide Russia with valuable evidence of a crack in Western solidarity, The Guardian newspaper reported on Tuesday, as cited by News.ro.

Ukraine’s president is due to come to Poland’s capital on Wednesday to express gratitude for the neighboring country’s solidarity during its war with Russia, but Polish grain producers are warning they may take to the streets to “disrupt” the event.

“Warsaw should think better,” said Marcin Sobchuk, head of the Zamostia Farmers’ Association, in an interview with the Polish website Interia. He said that his association is ready to “spoil” the visit of the Ukrainian president. “There are many ideas, but it is too early to talk about it,” he added.

As part of the EU initiative, all tariffs and quotas for the export of Ukrainian grain to 27 member countries of the bloc were increased to facilitate the transit of products around the world, including Africa, where the Russian blockade of Ukrainian exports has negative consequences. However, the grain failed to leave some countries in the east of the EU, including Poland, Hungary and Romania, which depressed prices in those countries and fueled anger among farming communities.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he would ask the European Commission and member states to reimpose barriers to Ukrainian grain exports, but Polish farmers say nothing has been done. “I thought that the minister took us seriously, but it turned out differently,” Sobchuk said.

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters since Vladimir Putin sent his army to the country in February 2022 and urged the EU to go further and faster with the economic sanctions regime. Moravetskyi was one of the first European leaders to visit Kyiv and was a strong supporter of Ukraine’s early accession to the EU, which would allow Ukrainian exporters to enjoy free and unrestricted trade.

However, domestic politics have begun to falter: the government recently cut funding for Ukrainian refugees and is now signaling its opposition to Poland hoarding grain from war-torn Ukraine.

Cereal crops remain in these countries of Eastern Europe also due to the lack of suitable transport opportunities. There are also specific infrastructure problems – for example, Ukrainian freight trains use a different track than EU railways. Also, after the ban on the import of energy carriers from Russia, priority is given to the import of coal to Poland. On the other hand, there has also been a reduction in demand from Africa due to the global economic recession.

As the war drags on, local farmers increasingly complain that imports of Ukrainian grain are being put at a disadvantage, rising to 2.45 million tonnes in 2022 from just under 100,000 tonnes in a normal year.

EU member states recently approved €56.3 million to support farmers in Bulgaria, Poland and Romania, and the Polish Ministry of Agriculture announced compensation. However, money is considered only a “drop in the ocean”. Earlier this month, Poland’s Agriculture Minister Henryk Kowalczyk was pelted with eggs during a debate with the European Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, who is Polish.

And while imports of Ukrainian grain in Eastern Europe are piling up, Ukrainian exports remain down nearly 18 percent to 36.9 million tons a year after the Russian invasion and blockade of key ports such as Odesa and uneven enforcement of an agreement with Moscow that allows free transit.