Polish truckers earlier this month blocked roads to three border crossings with Ukraine to protest against what they see as government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukrainian officials said last week that Kyiv and Warsaw had again failed to reach an agreement to stop the protest.

“For over 10 days, Ukrainian drivers have been blocked at the Polish border. Thousands of people are forced to live in difficult conditions with limited food, water, and fuel,” Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

He said trucks were backed up more than 30km towards the Yahodyn crossing, more than 10km towards Rava-Ruska, and more than 16km towards the Krakivets crossing.

According to Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry, an average of 40,000-50,000 trucks cross the border with Poland each month through eight existing crossings, twice as many as before the war. Most of the goods are carried by Ukraine’s transport fleet.

Now, only a few vehicles per hour are going through the Polish border at blocked checkpoints, Ukrainian border guards say.

Ukrainian grain brokers said last week that Ukraine’s shipments of food by road decreased by 2.7% in the first 13 days of November due to difficulties on the Polish border caused by a drivers’ strike.

Spike Brokers, which regularly tracks export statistics, said that the passage of vehicles through customs checkpoints on the border with Poland decreased to 4,000 tonnes of cargo per day, compared to the peak of 7,500 tonnes per day a month earlier.