In 2023, Ukrainian hauliers carried 362,000 transportations to Poland, of which 68,000 were fuel shipments and about 15,000 were humanitarian cargo transportations.

 

Thus, the number of commercial transportations was 280,000 in 2023. For comparison, Ukrainian hauliers carried out 229,000 transportations to Poland in 2021, and 307,000 in 2022.

 

 

«The key reason for the growth in the number of transportations by Ukrainian hauliers is the response to the consequences of the Russian armed aggression. Transportations of fuel, humanitarian and military cargo take up about 20% of total traffic. At the same time, Ukrainian hauliers perform transportations all over Ukraine. They transport goods to Kharkiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and other frontline areas, where international hauliers are mainly unable to operate due to security reasons.

 

However, this does not critically impact the bilateral transport market with Poland. Instead, as confirmed by the European Commission, the Agreement on Liberalizing Freight Transportation with Ukraine has positively impacted all parties to the arrangements», said Oleksandr Kubrakov, Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine and Minister of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development of Ukraine.

 

At the same time, Polish hauliers carried out just over 132,000 transportations to Ukraine in 2023. Regarding commercial bilateral traffic between the two countries, they take up 33% of the market, while Ukrainian hauliers take up 67%. Before the full-scale invasion, the market share of bilateral traffic between Polish and Ukrainian hauliers was 40% and 60%, respectively.

 

 

«The Ukrainian side has been in systematic contact with the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure, particularly balancing the transport market and preventing the blockade. In recent months, several meetings have been held, including the ones with the participation of Polish protesters.

 

At the end of December last year, we agreed with the new team of the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure on a list of measures to unblock the border. Nevertheless, since then, the issue of unblocking the border has remained the same. From our end, we have implemented the measures we promised. For example, we have launched a separate lane for empty trucks at the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing checkpoint, but the results of this measure cannot be seen due to the ongoing blockade. The Polish side accepts only about 30 trucks per day there, so the electronic queue reaches dozens of days of waiting», the minister explained.

 

On the contrary, during the one-week unblocking of the Yahodyn-Dorohusk checkpoint in December, the electronic queue to leave Ukraine took only up to 2 days.