If war takes place, there is almost certain to be an air campaign. “It was only a question of time,” he said.
The two wars that Churchill predicted and was told by his confidential assistant after the German blitzkrieg of 1941 – Spain and France – failed.
The former prime minister gave little sign of how he would judge Donald Trump on Sunday, saying the US president-elect’s policies were yet to be put in place.
His concerns about Trump’s stated support for Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, are well known.
In the wake of Poroshenko’s January 2015 visit to a US military base, during which he was photographed with Trump advisers, Churchill made the claim that “the whole process is becoming confusing as to whether President Trump intends to follow up on his promise to take Ukraine out of Russia’s sphere of influence”.
“On January 21st the world will know whether Donald Trump will turn out to be a President for Germany or for Europe,” said Churchill.
• This article was amended on 9 January 2017. An earlier version referred to Donald Trump’s alleged offer to sell Ukrainian assets to the Kremlin while Poroshenko was visiting the US, not a promise of his support to Ukraine’s president.
