Poland is successfully initiating new sanctions against Russia, despite the additional financial pressure on local manufacturers, while some other countries bargain for exclusions for them, the director of the Global Politics Institute Yevhen Magda has said.
“The permanent representative of Poland in the EU must be more exacting and categorical, especially as to the desires of other countries to have exclusions or long transit periods,” he said commenting the easing of sanctions on Russian metal products lobbied by some plants owned by Russians.
The lion’s share of Russian metal products is delivered to the Czech Republic via Polish ports. At the same time, Viltkovice steel receives Russian metal also made in Poland.
“Both plants are situated in one region and compete for the same customers, and the Czech plant wins due to bad faith. Huta has been idle for several months, and one of the reasons could be non-competitiveness with Czech products made of Russian semi-finished products. Thus, Poland loses jobs,” he added.
Until 2014, Viltkovice steel belonged to Evraz of the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Later it was transferred to a group of private investors from five funds registered in Cyprus. But official data said the sale was fictitious.
“At least one of the beneficiary owners worked at Evraz. Moreover, until the end of 2023 there were two Russian citizens in the supervisory board of the company. Which means, its decisions were taken in Moscow. No wonder, Viltkovice steel is successively lobbying quotes for Russian semi-finished products,” Magda said.
Still, he is sure that Poland has a real tool to prevent enrichment of Russian oligarchs by blocking the import of Russian slabs via its ports.
“Such a blockade will help both Ukrainian and Polish metal makers. In global sense, this will show that Russia lies always. The Czech plant will continue operating, but will finally do it fair, without Russian dumping and schemes as a result of which Putin’s oligarchs keep on enriching,” he underlined. (Ukrainian metal)
