Poles and Ukrainians are at loggerheads. That’s good news for Putin

The border demonstrations, now five months old, have economic roots. At the start of the war, when Ukraine lost access to its deep-water ports in the Black Sea, the EU temporarily exempted Ukrainian lorry drivers from a permit system that restricts movement in and out of the bloc. That upset Polish drivers, who had dominated the local freight business. Meanwhile a suspension of import duties and quotas on Ukrainian farm goods, produced by larger, more efficient outfits, posed competition to small Polish farmsteads, already pinched by EU environmental laws. A slump in world grain prices, plus politicking ahead of Polish local elections in April, heightened the tension.