Madrid, the G7 and Kremenchuk: Ukraine's allies weigh support
An analysis of how the G7 pledges, the Kremenchuk missile strike and the NATO summit announcement fitted together in the closing days of June 2022.
What did allies offer Ukraine in the days around 29 June 2022, and how did events on the ground frame those offers? Three developments, reported between 27 and 29 June, provide the answer.
On 27 June, leaders at the G7 summit in Germany issued a statement pledging more financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine. The pledge followed a video message from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling on allies for more heavy weapons. The request and the response were thus made public within the same news cycle.
The same day, two missiles struck a crowded shopping mall in Kremenchuk. As reported at the time, at least 13 people were killed and at least 50 injured. Zelenskyy said more than a thousand people were inside when the strike hit. Later accounts put the toll higher: at least 20 dead and at least 59 injured. They also described the weapons as two Kh-22 cruise missiles that hit the Kredmash road machinery plant and the adjacent Amstor mall in Poltava Oblast. Russian media and officials carried conflicting stories about the attack.
On 29 June, at the NATO summit in Madrid, US President Joe Biden announced a new permanent American military base in Poland: the headquarters of the 5th Army, which had kept a forward command post in Poznań since the previous year. Poland's government had long requested such a base.
Reading the sequence
The G7 statement dealt directly with Ukraine's needs, covering financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic help. The Madrid announcement concerned Poland, a neighbour of Ukraine, and a long-standing Polish request. Taken together, the three items show Ukraine's partners making commitments in different forms: pledges of aid to Kyiv and a lasting US military presence on NATO's eastern side.
The Kremenchuk strike came between the two summits, and the pledges and the announcement were made against that background. Zelenskyy's call for heavy weapons, the G7 response and the Madrid decision all appeared in the same three-day span.
