Hello and welcome to the Friday episode of the Battleground podcast with me Saul David and Patrick Bishop.

The big event this week was the shooting down of a 235 million

pound Russian A-50 long-range surveillance aircraft by a Ukrainian missile over the Sea of

Azov, while a Russian command and control plane was badly damaged in the same attack. Other

encouraging news for Ukraine was the announcement of two separate aid packages,

6 billion euros from Germany and 3 billion euros from the UK.

Bizarly, the EU condemned Germany's announcement on the grounds that it was going solo

and said the money could have been better spent in the EU's own weapons fund.

On the negative front, we've got the first strong indications of how the question that hangs

over all calculations concerning the future of the war in Ukraine will be answered.

That is, of course, who will be the president of the United States in 2025?

Donald Trump's resounding victory in the Iowa primary has greatly

boosted his chances, which at first sight is very bad news for Ukraine. We'll be discussing that

later, but for the moment, let's accentuate the positive. Well, top NATO official Admiral Rob

Bauer came out this week to state emphatically

that Ukraine's war with Russia would, quote, determine the fate of the world. And as a result,

all countries in the alliance needed to undertake a, quote, war-fighting transition. In other words,

gear up their militaries for a potential conflict. One of

several warnings about a future, a regional or indeed global conflagration that's come out of the

mouths of politicians in recent days. Well, President Zelensky, meanwhile, has told the World Economic

Forum in Davos that the West needs to help Ukraine gain

air superiority over Russia in yet another confirmation that its new strategy is to contain

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