Hello and welcome to battleground with me, Patrick Bishop and Roger Morehouse.

It's nice of report that what we've been saying for months now has become accepted

as the new reality by both the media and the political class, that is, that Ukraine has got the

upper hand in the war with Russia, and if the conditions are right, could, well, win it. So, Saul's

optimism, he was always the one that, to see the silver lining, wasn't he,

Roger, turns out to have been justified after all. So it's nice to be proved right, and let's hope

that a new positive trend persists. And all the signs are that it will. This week, Ukraine demonstrated

its power and its reach very effectively

with a drone strike on St Petersburg, just as Putin was about to host an international conference

aimed at projecting Russia as a great place to do business. A new situation, and the fact that

America and Trump seems to have little engagement

with current developments raises the question of what Europe can do to maintain the forward

momentum.

To answer it, we're lucky to have us our guest today, Dr. Helena von Bismarck, a historian

specialising in diplomacy as well as being a political commentator.

We'll be hearing from Helena later, but let's start with those strikes on Petersborough,

which it must be remembered is Vladimir Putin's hometown.

Embarrassing, humiliating all of the above?

What do you think, Roger?

Yeah, absolutely right, Patrick.

And as you say, on Wednesday this week, Ukraine carried out this drone strike on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, hours before the opening of that major economic forum, which, as you say, was designed to attract foreign investment into Russia.

There were thousands of guests from 130 countries attending, including a

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