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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump criticized Ukraine’s use of U.S.-supplied missiles for strikes deep into Russian territory in a Time magazine interview published Thursday, comments that suggest he could alter Washington’s policy toward Ukraine.
“It’s crazy what’s going on. It’s crazy. I strongly disagree with sending missiles hundreds of kilometers into Russia. Why are we doing this? We’re escalating this war and making it worse. This should not be allowed “to have allowed to do,” Trump said in an interview to mark his nomination for Time’s Person of the Year.
Last month, the President of the United States, Joe Biden lifted the ban in Ukraine using longer-range US-supplied missiles for strikes inside Russia, his latest attempt to push Kiev in its battle against Russian encroachment.
The decision came after requests from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The White House cited Russia’s deployment of 15,000 North Korean troops along the battle front as the main reason why Biden changed his mind.
Few details
Trump has said he would like to quickly end the nearly three-year-old war, but has been tight-lipped about the details. He told Time that he had a “very good plan” to help, but that if he reveals it now, it “becomes almost a worthless plan.”
Pressed on whether he would leave Ukraine, Trump said: “I want to make a deal, and the only way to make a deal is not to leave.”
He said the arrival of North Korean troops was a “very complicating factor”.
Trump, who takes office on January 20, met with Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris last weekend. Trump’s promise to quickly end the conflict has raised concerns in Kiev that it could be largely on Moscow’s terms.
Sources told Reuters that Zelenskyy used the meeting to explain Ukraine’s need for security guarantees in any negotiated end to the war with Russia. It has been seeking NATO membership for some time.
Regardless of what Trump wants, it’s unclear how it would be possible to end the fight.
Historian and journalist Anne Applebaum is skeptical that Russia is motivated to move in this direction.
“I haven’t heard anyone explain why the Russians would accept a deal of any kind.” he told Times Radio.
Death tolls ‘shocking’: Trump
Trump told Time that the number of people who died in the conflict, especially in the last month, was “shocking.”
“I’m speaking for both sides. It’s really a win-win for both sides to get this,” he said.
The war is entering what some Russian and Western officials say could be its final and most dangerous phase as Moscow’s forces advance at their fastest pace since the first weeks of the conflict.
Russia fired a hypersonic ballistic missile known as the Oreshnik in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on November 21. Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced the move in response to Ukraine’s first use of US ATACMS and British Storm Shadows ballistic missiles to strike Russian territory with Western permission.
LOOK | Putin must be defeated, says former Ukrainian leader:
Petro Poroshenko, former president of Ukraine, talks about what a second Trump US presidency could mean for the war in Ukraine.
Washington says there are more deliveries of US air defense exports to Ukraine.
The United States unveiled a $988 million US aid package with new weapons and equipment to Ukraine last Saturday.
Asked if he had spoken to Putin since his election, Trump did not respond, saying: “I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you. It’s just inappropriate.”
Shortly after Trump’s election victory, Putin publicly offered his congratulations and praised Trump’s “brave” character in the wake of a failed assassination attempt this past summer
Putin launched the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, leaving the two sides locked in all-out war ever since.
The conflict has seen thousands of Ukrainian civilians injured or killed. The United Nations says so the civilian death toll in Ukraine was 12,340at the end of November. That’s separate from the 27,836 civilians it says are known to have been injured since the start of the war.
