The feud has intensified ahead of Polish elections on Oct. 15.
Rather than sending weapons to Ukraine, Warsaw will focus on arming itself, Morawiecki said in a Wednesday evening interview with Polsat News. “We will protect our country,” he told the channel. “We are no longer transferring any weapons, because we will now arm ourselves with the most modern weapons.”
Poland will only fulfill existing contracts and deliver previously agreed supplies of weapons, Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller told the Polish Press Agency. He cited a “series of totally unacceptable statements and public gestures” by Ukraine.
Poland, Hungary and Slovakia said last week that they would keep in place a ban on the import of Ukrainian grain products as an agreement with the European Union to protect local farmers expired.
For Poland, the end of the E.U.-sanctioned embargo occurred just a month ahead of elections, in which the right-wing populist Law and Justice party is battling to stay in power. The party presents itself as the champion of Polish farmers and had amped up rhetoric against the European Union at campaign events, promising to protect Polish grain producers.
Ukrainian officials pledged this week to take legal action against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia to overturn the ban, though Kyiv’s chances of achieving a quick remedy seemed virtually nonexistent.
The increasingly bitter dispute has upended the relationship between Ukraine and one of its strongest backers. Poland is the sixth biggest military donor to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, and it has taken in more than 1.5 million refugees.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky caused fury in Warsaw on Tuesday when, during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he insinuated that Poland was playing into the hands of Russia. He accused “some in Europe” of feigning solidarity in “political theater” and creating a “thriller from the grain.”
“They may seem to play their own role, but in fact, they are helping set the stage to a Moscow actor,” Zelensky said.
Poland summoned the Ukrainian ambassador in Warsaw on Wednesday in response to the comments.
Speaking to Polsat, Morawiecki condemned Zelensky’s “very strong words,” which he said Poland “fundamentally” rejects.
“We send words of warning to Kyiv not to play such notes, which were in fact immediately picked up on in Poland by the so-called Russian trolls,” he said.
Given Poland’s support to Ukraine, including by lobbying Germany to send arms, such words are “doubly unfair,” Morawiecki said. Talks between Ukraine and Poland are ongoing, but the interests of Polish farmers “will certainly always be the most important to me,” he said.
The fight between Warsaw and Kyiv demonstrates that Moscow has achieved some success with its brutal, sustained attacks on Ukraine’s agriculture sector.
Morawiecki’s Law and Justice party counts the agricultural areas along the border with Ukraine as its heartland of support and is battling ahead of next month’s elections to maintain the backing of voters there, including those who have been considering the extreme right-wing Konfederacja party, known for its anti-Ukraine rhetoric.
Like Poland, Slovakia is facing a tightly fought election, with voters there going to the polls on Sept. 30. Appeasing farmers is seen as key to keeping populist former prime minister Robert Fico from returning to power.
Slovakia and Ukraine reached agreement on a new licensing system for trading in grain during an online meeting between the two countries’ agricultural ministers on Wednesday, the Slovak government confirmed on Thursday. The country’s ban on Ukrainian grain will continue “until this system is launched and its full operation is tested,” the agricultural ministry said, without giving a timeline.
Ukraine also agreed to halt its legal action against Slovakia within the World Trade Organization and drop threats for reciprocal bans on Slovak products.
While many farmers have decried the imports of cheap Ukrainian grain and support a ban, experts have questioned the impact of an embargo given that prices are more closely linked to global market fluctuations than local conditions.
When it decided not to extend the import restrictions last week, the European Commission said that “market distortions” caused by Ukrainian imports had disappeared.
On Thursday, a senior U.S. government official downplayed the rift, casting it as a heat-of-the-moment bit of electioneering.
“I know some folks feel like the prime minister’s remarks maybe were a reflection that the unity is finally cracking, and I just don’t see any evidence of that at every level,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic relations. “Throughout the bureaucracy in Poland, we saw a firm commitment to stay the course. They see no alternative.”
Morawiecki’s remarks, the official continued, are a “reflection that at the end of the day, we’re all human and there are moments of tension and there can be frustration on all sides, but that doesn’t mean that there’s going to be some dramatic shift in alliance unity or even Poland’s fundamental position and determination to support Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
“Each country that’s contributing to Ukraine has its own domestic politics. And that’s just the reality,” the official said.
Emily Rauhala in Brussels, Niha Masih in Seoul, Victoria Bisset in London and Anastacia Galouchka in Kyiv contributed to this report