The energy theme was an important part of the talks that Prime Minister Morawiecki held with President Zelenski and Prime Minister Shmyhal. “We have very tangible declarations and commitments from Ukrainian politicians, first of all from President Zelenski, regarding the unblocking of Ukrainian coal exports to Poland and the acceleration of the launch of the connection to transmit electricity from the nuclear power plant Khmelnytskyi to Poland,” said Michał Dworczyk, head of the Prime Minister’s Office when asked about the results of Prime Minister Morawiecki’s visit to Kyiv.

“This should be seen as a very clear gesture towards Poland. President Zelenski stressed that this would be an exception made for Poland. A total ban on Ukrainian coal exports had been in force for many months, and here an exception is to be made as part of the very close cooperation that has been occurring in recent months”, Dworczyk added.

It will be recalled that on Saturday, 10 September, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote in the Telegram messenger that Ukraine is ready to consider the possibility of introducing coal export quotas to Poland and that “it is about 100 thousand tonnes in September, critically needed by our Polish partners”.

In the same post, the Ukrainian Prime Minister also reported on the ongoing work on the power line between Khmelnitskaya NPP and Rzeszow.

“We had planned to finish before 14 December, but thanks to the acceleration of the work we can finish a week earlier. This will allow us to export up to an additional 1,000 MW to Poland”, wrote Denys Shmyhal.

Adrian Andrzejewski