The cucumber rules supreme in the cuisine of Eastern Europe. No salad is complete without a humble cucumber, which is a staple on any kitchen table across the region. But now a cucumber war has broken out between Poland and Russia, which remains the main supplier of Polish cucumbers.

Russia's oil exports get most of the world’s attention, and sanctions, but Poland’s import of cucumbers from Russia surged to record levels in early 2025, RIA NOVOSTI reports citing Eurostat data. Polish companies purchased 21,000 tonnes of Russian cucumbers worth €2.7mn in March, according to the report. While not high in nominal terms, the value of imports was up a quarter (25%) in year-on-year terms.

In effect, Russia supplied eight out of ten (83%) of every cucumber on a Polish kitchen table in March, ahead of Turkey, Belarus, and Ukraine, the other supplier of the watery green vegetable. The total volume of Polish cucumber imports reached €3.25mn in that month.

Frustrated Polish cucumber growers are now calling for a blanket ban on Russian imports for both ideological and commercial reasons. How can Poland support Ukraine while at the same time allow Russian and Belarusian products into their market, argue the farmers. These imports are “unfair competition” because Russian producers aren’t bound by EU agricultural standards and have access to cheaper energy.

Now the Polish authorities are rolling into action in the growing dispute. Oddly enough, Russian cucumbers have not made it to the lists of banned products in the seventeen rounds of sanctions imposed by the EU and Russian farmers are still free to sell as many cucumbers to Europe as they can.

The issue was first raised by the head of the Polish Association of Greenhouse Tomato and Cucumber Producers, Lukasz Gwizdala, who complained about the wave of Russian cucumber imports.

“The situation in which we, on the one hand, support Ukraine with our resources, and on the other hand, allow Russia and Belarus to sell products in Poland or in transit through our country to the European Union, is paradoxical,” Gwizdala said in an interview with the O2 portal.

The Polish government’s Agricultural and Food Quality Inspection Service (IJHARS) acknowledged the sharp rise in Russian cucumber imports during the wait for domestic produce.

Between January and mid-March, the agency inspected 125 batches of fresh cucumbers from Russia, totalling over 2,000 tonnes, RMF FM, a Polish broadcaster reported last week. However, IJHARS found all the batches met EU trade standards. Cucumbers are not hard to grow.

In March, IJHARS conducted additional checks at companies in three Polish provinces. The inspections revealed some irregularities in labelling, particularly misleading information about the vegetables’ origins. Polish vendors are not keen to advertise the fact that their goods are grown in Russia.

IJHARS said some wholesale sales were conducted with receipts that failed to inform buyers of the country of origin, a practice it described as “unfair and illegal.”

“This is a time when there is a temptation to market fresh vegetables from other countries, including third countries, as Polish products,” IJHARS said, according to RMF FM.

In February, Polish border authorities rejected a shipment of Russian cucumbers due to high pesticide residue levels. The cucumbers, carried by a Belarusian transporter, were returned to Russia.

The end result of the row is that Russian cucumbers – which tend to be shorter, fatter and covered with little nodules when compared to the longer, thinner western European version – may be added to the EU’s sanctions lists after all.

The Polish Association of Greenhouse Tomato and Cucumber Producers is lobbying with the Polish Agriculture Ministry and the Environment Ministry to address the issue.

"Together, we have developed a position that a good solution would be to convince EU authorities to impose an embargo on cucumber imports from Russia and Belarus. A decision on this could be made within the next month or two. We are waiting for its implementation," Gwizdala said.

And the problem is not limited to Poland. Spain and Romania also recorded a surge in Russian cucumber imports in March. Latvian producers, meanwhile, said they were worried that Russian cucumbers imported to Poland could be resold in the EU as EU-grown produce.

The Russian government is getting into the fray now as well. Russian producers currently fully meet domestic market demand for cucumbers and are fulfilling export targets, Deputy Agriculture Minister Andrei Razin told reporters at the start of this week.

"You should ask Polish farmers how they assess the situation. We are working, and our task is to meet our own needs and enter foreign markets," Razin said when asked about Russia's response to Polish farmers' request to ban imports of greenhouse vegetables from Russia due to high competition, reports TASS.

This is not the first time that Poland has been caught out by its agricultural ties with Russia. Before the sanctions regime was introduced in 2014, Polish farmers used to produce a large amount of the Antonovka sour apple, loved by Russians and exported in large quantities there.

However, after Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed tit-for-tat sanctions on EU agricultural products after the Crimea annexation sanctions were imposed on Russia, the Polish apple growers found themselves with large quantities of apples they could not sell, as the Antonovka apple is too sour for western European tastes.

Today, Poland has a flourishing cider industry where none existed a decade ago.