Gdansk

Gdansk (German: Danzig) is a Baltic Sea port city in northern Poland and the capital of Pomerania Voivodeship, with a population of around 490,000. The city is Poland's largest seaport, handling about a third of the country's maritime trade, and is home to the Solidarity trade union movement founded in 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard, which was a catalyst for the eventual collapse of communist rule across Eastern Europe. Gdansk sits at the mouth of the Vistula river and has significant historical weight as a flashpoint of the Second World War, German forces having bombarded the Westerplatte garrison on 1 September 1939.

In June 2026 Gdansk hosted the Ukraine Recovery Conference on 25-26 June, the annual international forum on Ukraine's reconstruction that rotates between partner countries. The 2026 edition coincided with the EU Council conclusions of 18 June confirming disbursement of the first €3.2 billion tranche of the EU's €90 billion Ukraine loan. The disbursement at Gdansk was symbolic as well as logistical: it linked EU membership momentum (the Intergovernmental Conference opening on 18 June) with concrete reconstruction finance at a venue in a NATO ally's territory.

Poland has been one of Ukraine's staunchest supporters and Gdansk's Solidarity heritage lends political symbolism to Ukraine's reconstruction cause. The city's port infrastructure also makes it a practical node for arms and aid transit to Ukraine, and it lies within the Baltic corridor that NATO has reinforced since 2022.