Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service has rejected reports that Polish officers have deliberately slowed checks on passenger buses crossing the Polish-Ukrainian frontier, saying processing is continuing at its normal pace.
Andrii Demchenko, spokesperson for Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service, said claims circulating in recent days that queues had developed because Polish border guards were carrying out significantly slower or more detailed checks were incorrect.
“This is false and incorrect information,” Demchenko said in comments reported by Ukrinform. He added that Polish border guards had “not reduced the pace of their work when it comes to border-crossing procedures”.
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Demchenko said Polish officers were carrying out checks in accordance with Polish law and their established procedures for processing passengers and vehicles.
According to the Ukrainian Border Guard Service, traffic across the Polish section of the frontier is proceeding normally and there has been no general slowdown in the rate at which travellers are being processed.
Rumours focused on passenger buses
The clarification specifically addressed reports concerning passenger buses, one of the most important forms of cross-border transport between Poland and Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Thousands of passengers use road crossings linking the two countries, while the frontier also carries substantial freight and humanitarian traffic.
Official Polish border data on Sunday morning showed that waiting times varied considerably between individual crossings and types of traffic. At around 08:15, most crossings reported no wait for buses leaving Poland, while Medyka showed an estimated three-hour wait. Heavy-goods traffic faced much longer queues at several crossings.
Earlier overnight data had shown bus queues of several hours at some crossings, illustrating that delays can fluctuate substantially during the day without necessarily indicating a deliberate change in Polish processing procedures.
Border traffic remains vulnerable to security disruptions
The clarification comes after a period of unusual disruption along the frontier caused by Russian attacks close to Poland.
Earlier this month, processing at some Polish-Ukrainian crossings was temporarily suspended during drone threats and Russian strikes near border infrastructure. More than 600 people were evacuated from the Dorohusk and Hrebenne crossings during one such incident, according to Polish border officials cited by Ukrinform.
Ukraine has also introduced procedures under which border crossings can temporarily halt the movement of people and vehicles during air-raid alerts in affected areas.
Those security-related interruptions are separate from the claims addressed by Demchenko, who said there was no evidence that Polish border guards had intentionally reduced their normal processing rate.
The Ukrainian Border Guard Service has also said that all of the country’s border crossing points are currently operating normally, including facilities affected by earlier Russian attacks.
For travellers, individual queues may therefore still vary significantly by crossing, time of day and vehicle type, but Ukrainian authorities say there is no current Polish policy of deliberately slowing passenger-bus checks.
