Neither Ukraine nor Poland need “this grain war”, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, adding that the election campaign in the neighboring country is fueling tensions.

“We don’t need this grain war, neither does Poland,” Kuleba said in an interview published today by the Interfax-Ukraine agency.

“We have not created this crisis and we absolutely want to put an end to it,” he added, estimating that the current Polish-Ukrainian tensions are due to the campaign ahead of the October 15 elections in Poland.

“Feelings are strong. “The tension may increase further in Poland until October 15,” the minister argued, as Poland’s populist government, strongly supported by the country’s rural areas, presents a ban on Ukrainian grain imports that it has imposed as a measure to protect Polish farmers. .

Kouleba stated that he is confident that the crisis will be resolved soon, considering that the two countries have “no other choice”.

He disapproved, on the contrary, of the speeches of Polish officials, who described the Ukrainians as ungrateful.

“I consider it a strategic threat (…) the dynamic spread of the narrative about the so-called ingratitude of the Ukrainians” towards Poland, one of their main allies against the Russian invasion”, said the Ukrainian Foreign Minister.

“It’s a complete lie. Ukraine is very sincerely and deeply grateful to the Polish people and the Polish government,” he assured.

But “the fact that they are planting in the minds of Poles the narrative of ingratitude of Ukraine and Ukrainians risks having extremely negative consequences for security,” Kuleba said.

Warsaw is home to nearly a million Ukrainian refugees who fled their homeland after the Russian invasion began in 2022, and Western military aid mainly passes through its territory.