Incoming President of the U.S, Donald Trump, says that he “vehemently” disagrees with the decision made by President Joe Biden to permit Ukraine to use US-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets within Russia.
“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” Mr Trump told Time magazine, who named him their person of the year for a second time. “Why are we doing that? ” he asked.
Trump said that the policy switch by Biden’s administration, which authorised the use of Atacms rockets within Russia by Ukrainian forces, was “just escalating this war and making it worse”.
“That should not have been allowed to be done,” the Republican winner of the November Presidential election said.
The Biden administration had eventually agreed to requests from Ukraine for permission to use long-range strikes on targets inside Russia, which led to Britain and France also authorising the use of cruise missiles on Russian soil.
Russian President, Vladimir Putin responded by threatening the use of a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile against Ukraine in a retaliatory strike – and the strike was carried out on weapons production plant in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on 21st November last.
“The level, the number of people dying is number one, not sustainable, and I’m talking on both sides. It’s really an advantage to both sides to get this thing done,” Trump told Time.
“[I] had a meeting recently with a group of people from the government, where they come in and brief me, and I’m not speaking out of turn, the numbers of dead soldiers that have been killed in the last month are numbers that are staggering, both Russians and Ukrainians, and the amounts are fairly equal. You know, I know they like to say they weren’t, but they’re fairly equal, but the numbers of dead young soldiers lying on fields all over the place are staggering. It’s crazy what’s taking place. It’s crazy,” he said.
Mr Trump says he will seek to put an end to the war through diplomatic negotiations with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin – but denied he would “abandon” Ukraine.
“And I disagree with the whole thing, because it should have never happened,” he added.
“Putin would have never invaded Ukraine if I were president for numerous reasons. Number one, they drove up the oil price. When they drove up the oil price, they made it a profit-making situation for him, the oil price should have been driven down. If it was driven down, you wouldn’t have had it wouldn’t have started just for pure economic reasons. But when it hits $80, $85, and $90 a barrel. I mean, he made, he made a lot of money. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, because he’s also suffered, but they are moving forward. You know, this is a war that’s been—this is a tragedy. This is death that’s far greater than anyone knows. When the real numbers come out, you’re going to see numbers that you’re not going to believe.”