What the last days of June 2022 showed

What did the final days of June 2022 reveal about the war in Ukraine? On 30 June 2022, the picture was shaped by a deadly missile strike, a show of allied support and a shift in US military posture in Europe.

Support pledged

On 27 June 2022, leaders at the G7 summit in Germany issued a statement pledging more financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine. The statement followed a video message from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had called on allies for more heavy weapons.

Kremenchuk

The same day, two missiles struck a crowded shopping mall in the city of 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 missiles hit. Later accounts put the toll higher: at least 20 dead and at least 59 injured. They also describe the strike as hitting the Kredmash road machinery plant and the adjacent Amstor mall, with Russian media and officials giving conflicting stories about it.

NATO and Poland

On 29 June 2022, at the NATO summit in Madrid, US President Joe Biden announced that a new permanent US military base would be established in Poland, the headquarters of the 5th Army. The unit had kept a forward command post in Poznań since the previous year. Poland's government had long requested such a base.

Moscow's diplomacy

Russian President Vladimir Putin had meanwhile made his first foreign trip since the invasion, starting on 26 June 2022 with visits to Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Reading the sequence

Taken together, these events show the contrasts of the moment. Allies pledged more help and Washington committed to a lasting presence in Poland. Ukraine's president pressed for heavier weapons, and civilians in Kremenchuk were killed in a strike on a crowded site. The Russian president, for his part, travelled abroad for the first time since the invasion.