What the last days of June 2022 meant for Ukraine
A retrospective on the missile strike in Kremenchuk and the Western commitments that framed the final days of June 2022.
What was happening around Ukraine on 30 June 2022, and how had the preceding days shaped the picture? The date fell at the end of a week marked by an attack on civilians and by pledges of support from allied capitals.
On 26 June, Russian President Vladimir Putin set off on a foreign trip to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, his first since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Kremenchuk and the G7
On 27 June, two missiles struck a crowded shopping mall in the city of Kremenchuk. Early reports put the toll at no fewer than 13 dead and at least 50 injured. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said more than a thousand people had been inside at the time. Later accounts of the strike, which hit the Kredmash road machinery plant and the adjacent Amstor mall in Poltava Oblast, raised the toll to at least 20 dead and at least 59 injured. Russian media and officials gave conflicting stories about the attack.
The same day, leaders at the G7 summit in Germany issued a statement pledging more financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine. It followed a video address in which Mr Zelenskyy called on allies for more heavy weapons.
NATO in Madrid
On 29 June, at the NATO summit in Madrid, US President Joe Biden announced that a new permanent American military base would be established in Poland. It would be 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.
Taken together, the events of 26 to 29 June showed a war that continued to reach civilian targets, alongside a series of declarations by Ukraine's partners about support and about their own security posture.
