Polish farmers join truckers in border protest. Ukraine wants roads unblocked before talks

Two Ukrainian drivers have died and thousands of trucks have been stuck for days in the winter cold as the truckers blocked the roads to three crossings on the Polish-Ukrainian border, a key route for Ukraine's trade during Russia's invasion.

Taras Kachka, Ukraine's trade representative and a deputy economy minister, said drivers were being forced to endure days of freezing temperatures and unhygienic conditions.

"Our task is to unblock the road first and then talk about all the demands that the protesters have," Kachka said in an interview on national television.

"This should be done at the negotiating table... in Brussels, or in Warsaw, or in Kyiv, but not on the road in winter, causing damage not only to the economy but also to the health and lives of drivers who are stuck there," he added.

The truckers say they are losing out to Ukrainian companies who offer cheaper prices for their services and who are now transporting goods within the European Union, and not just back and forth to Ukraine.

Ukrainian media outlets reported that a truck driver died overnight near the Polish village of Korczowa where he had been waiting to cross the border. Another driver died on Nov. 11 near the crossing in the Polish city of Chełm.

Polish truckers started their blockade on Nov. 6 to protest business they said was lost to Ukrainian drivers who are exempt from needing permits to cross the Polish border due to the war with Russia.

On Thursday, truckers were blocking the Medyka crossing alongside farmers, who are demanding that support to help them deal with low grain prices be continued. This brings the number of road crossings blocked to four out of a total of eight.

"We are defenseless, powerless, and as carriers left on our own," said Jacek Sokół of the Committee to Protect Transporters and Transport Employers.

Roman Kondrów, an organiser of the farmers' protest, said the Medyka crossing would be blocked from 0800 to 1900 GMT, and that from Monday, a round-the-clock protest would start, in which only two trucks per hour would be let through, with some exceptions including humanitarian aid. He said this protest would run until Jan. 3.

With Ukraine's Black Sea ports - a key export route before the war - virtually blocked by Russia, Ukrainian businesses rely on roads and railways to reroute exports and imports.

Ukraine's Infrastructure Ministry estimated that an average 40,000-50,000 trucks cross the border with Poland per month via eight existing crossings, twice as many as before the war. Most of the goods are carried by Ukraine's transport fleet.

The European Business Association in Ukraine said that accumulated losses from the blockade reached over 305 million hryvnias ($8.5 million), hitting both exporters and importers.