Polish Police lifts blockade of Russian and Belarusian trucks
The Polish National Police has relaunched the traffic of trucks with Russian and Belarusian license plates on the border between Poland and Belarus. After the three-day blockade, the activists were forced to retreat. As a result, Russia and Belarus will continue to receive goods from the European Union despite the sanctions.
“Russian and Belarusian trucks loaded in Europe continue to cross the Polish-Belarusian border without any problems and are going to be unloaded in Russia. This is what sanctions against Russia are supposed to look like?! As we can see, the government does not want to deal with this issue, so we – the civil society – have to deal with it,” the ‘Euromaidan-Warszawa’ social initiative stated on Friday, 11 March. The organisation also called to block the heavy goods vehicles with Russian and Belarusian license plates near the Kukuryki-Kozłowicze road border crossing.
Starting from 12 March, around 20 protesters have been blocking several hundreds of trucks. This has resulted in the huge queues of the vehicles. According to Radio Poland (Polskie Radio), around 450 trucks were blocked by midday of Sunday, 13 March. At midday of Monday, 14 March, the ‘Euromaidan-Warszawa’ social initiative published a video where the Polish policemen are pushing back the protesters from the road. This has marked the end of the action. Meanwhile, many Poles continue to express their indignation regarding this issue.