KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Thursday it wanted its export routes via Poland to be unblocked before it holds talks with Warsaw and the European Commission aimed at ending protests by Polish truckers which are reducing Ukrainian exports.
Two Ukrainian drivers have died and thousands of trucks have been stuck for days in the winter cold as the truckers block the roads to three crossings on the Polish-Ukrainian border, a key route for Ukraine's trade during Russia's invasion.
Taras Kachka, Ukraine's trade representative and a deputy economy minister, said drivers were being forced to live for days in freezing temperatures and unhygienic conditions.
"Our task is to unblock the road first and then talk about all the demands that the protesters have," Kachka said in an interview on national television.
"This should be done at the negotiating table... in Brussels, or in Warsaw, or in Kyiv, but not on the road in winter, causing damage not only to the economy but also to the health and lives of drivers who are stuck there," he added.
Ukrainian media outlets reported that a truck driver died overnight near the Polish village of Korczowa where he had been stuck waiting to cross the border. Another driver died on Nov. 11 near the crossing in the Polish city of Chełm.
Polish truckers started their blockade on Nov. 6 to protest against what they said was business lost to Ukrainian drivers who have been made exempt from seeking permits to cross the Polish border during the Russian invasion.
With Ukraine's Black Sea ports - a key export route before the war - virtually blocked by Russia, Ukrainian businesses rely on roads and railways to reroute exports and imports.
Ukraine's Infrastructure Ministry estimated that an average 40,000-50,000 trucks cross the border with Poland per month via eight existing crossings, twice as many as before the war. Most of the goods are carried by Ukraine's transport fleet.
The European Business Association in Ukraine said that accumulated losses from the blockade reached over 305 million hryvnias ($8.5 million), hitting both exporters and importers.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash; editing by Tom Balmforth and Miral Fahmy)
