Poland’s farmers' leaders linked with far-right, pro-Russian party

By Jo Harper

WARSAW (AA) – Two of the three leaders of Poland’s farmers' protests are associated with the far-right, pro-Russian Confederation party, Polish news service Money.pl reported on Wednesday.

Farmers are protesting across the country in opposition to inflows of grain from Ukraine, the EU's Green Deal policy, and trade liberalization with Ukraine. Poland's government says it is sympathetic to the farmers' demands and is in talks with Brussels over a compromise.

The protests – which intensified this week with over 200 blockades of roads and rail tracks – have included people not hiding their sympathy for Russia and Vladimir Putin. One banner featured the slogan "Putin, put things in order with Ukraine, Brussels, and our rulers." Demonstrators also placed the Soviet flag on at least one tractor.

Rafal Mekler is head of the Podkarpacie structures of the Confederation and an activist of the National Movement, another smaller far-right party. Privately, he runs a transport company and is accused of maintaining contacts with Russian companies. Confederation won seats in parliament last October, for the first time, winning around 10% of the vote, but failing to form a coalition with the then-ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.

“Due to Ukraine's intercession, we can’t go to Russia, we can’t go to Belarus, and to fulfill our contracts in Kazakhstan, we go through Turkey,” he said in an interview with Polsat News last November.

- ‘Fight for the right to survive against the EU’

In February, Ukrainian Deputy Economy and Trade Minister Taras Kaczka wrote on social media that Mekler "and his gang will start killing Ukrainians because they are Ukrainians."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week the protests were about politics, not grain, as "only 5% of our agricultural exports cross the Polish border."

Ukraine's ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Zvarych, wrote on X on Tuesday: "Shame and disgrace, gentlemen!"

Clearing customs at one crossing is now reportedly taking more than two weeks.

“It's me who feels threatened. Ukrainians write to me in messages that they will kill my children. I was placed on the Ukrainian list of enemies of their country,” Mekler told WP.pl, a Polish news site on Tuesday. He is also on the list of the Ukrainian organization Myrotvorets that tracks “pro-Russian terrorists," Money.pl reported.

Hubert Ojdana, a farmer from Podlasie and a member of the Farmers' Trade Union Korona, ran in last year's parliamentary elections, unsuccessfully, on a Confederation list. During a protest in Dorohusk, in a speech to demonstrators, he said he had received help from Confederation politicians.

One of the three main leaders of agricultural protests is not associated with the Confederation: Roman Kondrow, the 53-year-old leader of the Podkarpacka Oszukana Wies (Podkarpacka Cheated Villages) association, which has been mobilizing farmers since last fall.

“The farmer is stubborn and will not give in. We are flooded with grain from Ukraine. They say there that we are against Ukraine. We, farmers from all over Poland, were the first to extend a friendly hand and welcome our brothers from Ukraine. And at this moment we are being harmed by them. Various mafias import this grain to Poland. There is no other way to describe it,” Kondrow told radio RMF FM on Tuesday.

Monika Przeworska, director of the Institute of Agricultural Economy, which supports the protests, told Gazeta.pl on Wednesday: “The truth is that the EU is taking us – Polish farmers – to war with Ukraine, as we have to fight for the right to survive against the EU, which suddenly stated that it will defend the interests of Ukrainian oligarchs, not the European farmer. This should not be the case.”​​​​​​​