Number of blocked crossings on Ukrainian-Polish border halves

MOSCOW. March 25 (Interfax) - Polish farmers are continuing to block the passage of Ukrainian trucks on three routes, stopping trucks from existing Ukrainian territory via the Yagodin and Rava Russkaya border crossings, Ukrainian media said, citing State Border Service spokesman Andrei Demchenko.

"There are three directions [where truck traffic is being blocked] today [on March 24]. I'd like to remind you that there used to be six checkpoints where they [protesting Polish farmers] were blocking [truck traffic]. Today there are three of them - Yagodin, Ugrinov and Rava Russkaya, to be more precise. And, as a matter of fact, at Yagodin and Rava Russkaya, the largest two border crossings of these three, Polish farmers are not letting in any trucks heading from Ukraine," Demchenko said in televised remarks published on the YouTube video hosting platform.

There has recently been no incoming traffic from Ukraine at these two crossings, with nearly 500 trucks waiting to cross the border, he said.

The EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell last week called for the Ukraine-EU border to be unblocked both to military and civilian cargo. The Polish authorities expect to find a solution to the problem of Polish farmers' blockade of the border with Ukraine within the next few weeks.

Farmers began a nationwide strike in Poland on February 9, also blocking crossings on the border with Ukraine. The farmers' key demands include a halt to Ukrainian agricultural exports to Polish territory and Poland's withdrawal from the EU's Green Deal, intended to fight greenhouse gas emissions and make agriculture "climate neutral" by 2050.