The US President-elect has indicated that he may reconsider and potentially reverse the decision after assuming office next month
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| Biden 'Stupid for Allowing Long-Range Strikes on Russia – Trump |
U.S. president Joe Biden has been “very stupid” by allowing the Ukrainian military to use American missiles to strike deep beyond Russia’s borders, President-elect Donald Trump said.
Biden last month allowed Ukraine to use American-supplied ATACMS missiles to strike targets in internationally recognized Russian territory, knowing that the incoming president will oppose such a move. Since then, Kiev's military has carried out several missile attacks, including last week's bombing of a military airbase near the southern city of Taganrog. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, two of the six missiles fired by the Kiev forces, were intercepted by air defenses, while the rest were deflected by electronic warfare.
“I don’t think Russia should have been allowed to fire a missile 200 miles away,” Trump told reporters at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday. “I don’t think that should be allowed. Not when it could be… and certainly not a few weeks before I take over, why would they do that without asking what I think?”
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“I thought it was very stupid to do,” he continued, adding that he “will be” authoritarian when he takes office next month.
Trump has repeatedly accused Biden of dragging the United States into open war with Russia, and Monday's comments were the second in a week in which he criticized the president's decision to authorize the strike on ATACMS on a long-range attack.
“The most dangerous thing now is, I think, that [Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky has decided, with the president’s approval, to attack Russia with missiles,” he told Time magazine on Wednesday.
“I think that’s a big improvement. I think this is a foolish decision,” he insisted.
Russia considers such a missile a major advance, as the weapons cannot be launched “without the direct involvement of military experts from production countries,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a speech a month last year that Use dropped large amounts of weapons on a Ukrainian military installation in the Dnepr.
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The Russian Defense Ministry has said that the strike on Taganrog will also be met with an appropriate response.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow agrees with Trump’s position on the strikes being dangerous, and that “it is obvious that Trump understands what exactly is escalating the situation around the conflict.”
Trump has repeatedly promised to end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours of taking office, a claim that both Kiev and Moscow have cast doubt on. During Monday’s press conference, the incoming president acknowledged that resolving “the Russia-Ukraine situation” might prove “more difficult” than ending the conflict in the Middle East.