In the last months, during the Ukrainian crisis, Poland and Russia have been strongly opposed. Warsaw has firmly supported Kiev against Putin interference. But the position of Poland has deeply exposed itself to the ban of import of some products decided by Putin.
Even the contraposition between Poland and Russia has solid roots in the history, this has not prevent both the Countries to have a natural economic connection.
Which is the economic relation between Russia and Poland?
Russia is the fifth economic partner of Poland: more than 5% of total polish export goes towards Moscow for an amount of 9 billions of dollars per year. An important item is represented by apples that are the 27% of total apples imported in Russia.
Instead, Warsaw mainly buys from Moscow oil (93% of the total) for a business of around 17 billions of dollars per year. The rest of oil comes from Norway (3,23%), Kazakhstan (2,07%) and Tunisia (0,45%) (Source: Observatory of Economic complexity).
Those numbers explain why the ban of fruit import decided by Putin in August has so deeply touched the economy of Poland. By the way, Poles have answered proudly with a movement born on Social Media: "Eat apples to annoy Putin" ,inviting to eat polish apples as protest against the President of Russia.
Finally, it is interesting to notice that the anti-Russian position has been hold against economical interests. Poland has paid economic consequences, but it has also had frictions with some European Partners. It is interesting to see that sometimes values seem more important than money.
