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

The big news from the battlefield this week is that after

more than nine months of extremely costly combat, the eastern Ukrainian city of Bahmoud has finally

fallen to progousians Wagner PMC. But is it a Pyrrhic victory that will ultimately cost the

Russians dear? And at the same time, was this also the week that Ukraine won the war?

That's the question being put by friend of the podcast, Philips O'Brien,

in the wake of the momentous news that the Biden administration has put in place a plan

to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighters.

And just as importantly, is firming up its support for Ukraine to take back

all of its territory, including Crimea. We'll consider all that, and also the extraordinary

events in Russia's Belgograd region where anti-Kremlin fighters from the so-called Russian

Freedom Legion have captured a cluster of villages and proclaimed a People's Republic.

But first, the news that Bakhmut has fallen, what saw is the significance of this?

Well, on the surface, of course, it's not good news for the Ukrainians, obviously. After all,

President Zelensky has invested a certain amount of political capital in this by long

insisting that the

army would hold on to Bakhmud. And there are still denials, interesting enough, even today,

that the town has fallen. Ukrainian defence officials insisting that a bit of the town is still

in Ukrainian hands. They're saying that their forces control and insignificant,

that's a quote from them, part of the southwestern Bakhmud city around the T0504 highway.

But even if we accept that 99% of the built-up area has fallen, if not 100%, the question I suppose

we have to answer is, does this matter?

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