Trump says he "vehemently" disagrees with allowing Ukraine to use US-provided weapons to strike inside Russia
President-elect Donald Trump said he “vehemently” disagrees with allowing Ukraine to use US-provided weapons to strike inside Russia, and that by doing so the US is “escalating this war and making it worse” in a lengthy interview as Time magazine’s 2024 “Person of the Year.”
“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that?” Trump said in the interview which took place on November 25. “We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done. Now they’re doing not only missiles, but they’re doing other types of weapons. And I think that’s a very big mistake, very big mistake.”
President Joe Biden gave long-awaited authorization to Ukraine in November to use powerful US-provided long-range weapons, called Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, inside Russia. The authorization was a key request from Ukraine for months.
Remember: Throughout his campaign, Trump repeatedly cast doubts on continuing US support to Ukraine in its war against Russia, and vowed to end the war once he was in office. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he wants to work “directly” with Trump and is open to his ideas on ending the war.
Trump declined to say in his interview with Time if he has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the election, but was pushed repeatedly on the question of if he would “abandon” Ukraine president.
“I want to reach an agreement, and the only way you’re going to reach an agreement is not to abandon,” Trump said. He said the war is a “tragedy” with a “staggering” number of people killed on both sides of the conflict.
“[T]he number 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 … the numbers of dead young soldiers lying on fields all over the place are staggering,” he said
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