Vehicles blocked at Ukrainian-Polish border again
MOSCOW. May 13 (Interfax) - Protesters have been blocking operations of the Dorohusk-Yagodin motor checkpoint at the Ukrainian-Polish border since Monday, Ukrainian media said, citing the Ukrainian State Customs Service.
The protesters allow one vehicle per hour to pass through the checkpoint both ways. Buses, humanitarian trucks and fuel trucks entering Ukraine are also let through, the State Customs Service said.
Protest organizers want to draw attention to the situation in transport operations in Poland and demand that Ukrainian road carriers again be issued transborder transportation permits for entering Poland.
The Polish protesters were able to block the Dorohusk-Yagodin checkpoint having disputed the ban on such protests in court.
"We have achieved the lifting of the ban on protests," Ukrainian media cited a statement by protest organizers posted on a social network. The Dorohusk mayor prohibited the protest on May 8, yet a court in Lublin overruled the ban.
The court allowed the protest to continue for four months, from May 12 through September 12.
The court processed the case on a motion from Rafal Mekler, a Polish politician from the far-right National Movement that leads Polish protesters, who blocked the Ukrainian-Polish border, including the Dorohusk-Yagodin checkpoint from November 22, 2023, to March 1, 2024. Only empty trucks and cars were allowed to pass back then.
The protesters are blocking a key junction near the Dorohusk-Yagodin checkpoint, which has no bypass, Ukrainian media quoted Alexander Kirilyuk, operations director of a major transborder road carrier Zammler as saying. They had set up tents, which were cordoned off by the police to close the area and to prevent conflicts with drivers. Before the protest the police managed to move several dozen trucks closer to the border, so that they could enter the terminal, the operations director of the logistics group, trucks of which crossed the border through the checkpoint in the morning of May 12, said.
Massive road works are underway at another major checkpoint at the Ukrainian-Polish border, Krakowiec-Korczowa. The asphalt pavement will be replaced there until June. The works will cover the entry lanes to Poland for trucks and the exit lanes from Poland for cars. In addition, on the Ukrainian side, infrastructure upgrades are continuing at the Shehyni-Medyka checkpoint.