Poland has escalated its rhetoric against Ukraine beyond a trade dispute over grain, with president Andrzej Duda comparing the war-torn country to a drowning person clinging to their rescuer and endangering their life.
“Ukraine is behaving like a drowning person clinging to anything available,” Duda told Polish journalists in New York on Tuesday. “A drowning person is extremely dangerous, capable of pulling you down to the depths . . . simply drown the rescuer.”
The president’s unflattering remarks came after Poland led a coalition of central and eastern European countries that extended unilateral curbs on imports of Ukrainian foodstuffs despite the EU agreeing to lift them on Friday.