By KYIV. Dec 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Romania helped Ukraine survive during Poland’s blockade of agricultural exports, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
“Thank God, smart Romania appeared and the President of Romania, Klaus Iohannis, just helped me. He helped our farmers survive. And he had such difficulties, he had strikers. I think he showed the manifestation of a strong man who said: “Values first, and then there are prices,” Zelenskyy said at a press conference on Tuesday.
The President noted that there is now a new government in Poland and expressed hope that the issue of the blockade of grain exports will be resolved.
“I had contact with President Duda, he congratulated me on our important holidays, and vice versa – I turned to him. We have leveled out this situation. New government. I will believe that the new government will unblock this whole blockade. It is artificial,” he said.
As Zelenskyy noted, “you cannot politicize the grain issue when everything is blocked.”
“Listen, from April to September it was very difficult, we lost hundreds of millions of dollars, we lost part of the crop, we lost every day. And every day our farmers asked me: “What? Our fields are mined, how can we at least take something out?” And that’s what happened, and we began to lose political relations,” Zelenskyy said.
At the same time, he expressed gratitude to the Polish people for the support provided to Ukraine.
“But you understand: I’m not some kind of wuss, I’m defending the interests of my country during the war. I said: just let us take it out [grain], they didn’t let us take it out. And it was wrong. It’s just wrong,” he said.
