The Kremlin expects increased friction between Poland and Ukraine

The friction that has arisen between the leadership of Poland and Ukraine will increase, press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“You and I see that there are certain tensions between Warsaw and Kiev. Actually, we predict that these tensions between Warsaw and Kiev will increase <...> We understand that friction between Kiev and other European capitals will also increase over time, this is inevitable,” Peskov said.

Warsaw and Kiev now remain “the main focus of Russophobia,” the Kremlin spokesman said, adding that Russia continues its special operation in Ukraine to fulfill “the tasks that we ourselves have set for us.”

On September 21, Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller said that Poland would carry out “only previously agreed supplies of ammunition and weapons, including those arising from contracts concluded with Ukraine.” On September 20, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Polsat that Warsaw had stopped supplying weapons to Kyiv, as it was actively arming itself.

These statements coincided with the escalating conflict between Warsaw and Kyiv over the Polish embargo on the supply of Ukrainian agricultural products to the Polish market, Vedomosti wrote. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York, accused Warsaw of helping Russia with the ban. In response, on September 20, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Vasily Zvarych was summoned to the Foreign Ministry. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland Pawel Jablonski conveyed to Zvarych “a decisive protest from the Polish side.”