Lithuanian farmers sided with Ukraine

Agrarians of the Republic of Lithuania are not going to join the protest action of their Polish colleagues and block Ukrainian grain.

The conflict over Ukrainian grain is caused by “enemy forces” who are interested in preventing EU countries from importing Ukrainian goods, the adviser to the Minister of Agriculture of Lithuania, Rokas Petrašiūnas, LRT writes.

The minister’s advisor noted that although narratives that are used in Poland are spread in local communities, the amount of grain from Ukraine that arrives in Lithuania is insignificant, and its transit through the territory of the country is practically not carried out. So the question is who reinforces these narratives.

“Lithuanian farmers did not block, do not block and are not going to block Ukrainian grain. We see the problem, but we understand the situation of Ukrainian farmers – they came last fall, we held a round table with them where we discussed these difficulties, – said the head of the Lithuanian Association of Grain Producers Aushris Matsiauskas. – Of course, it is necessary to monitor, to keep records, to do all this, which the Lithuanian government also does not do, but we are not going to block, as the Poles do.”

At the same time, according to Matiauskas, a bigger problem for Lithuanian farmers is the Russian grain that enters the country.

As the trade representative of Ukraine Taras Kachka reported on the telethon, last year the EU bought 1.7 million tons of wheat from the Russians.

As USM recently wrote, the first offenders who spilled Ukrainian grain from grain trucks on the border with Poland have already appeared in court.

Read also: Ukraine has a plan to unblock the border with Poland.