President Joe Biden’s green light for Ukraine to strike Russia with US-made long-range missiles has caused consternation among some of Donald Trump’s allies.

Trump himself did not comment, but he won the election after promising to end the war, and many close to him condemned the move as a dangerous escalation.

Biden has committed tens of billions of dollars to Kiev’s war effort and over the weekend reportedly abandoned a long-standing red line on Ukraine using American weapons to launch strikes deep into Russia.

Before his father took office, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that the president was trying to “start World War III.”

Biden’s decision has not been officially confirmed and may never be confirmed.

Asked how typical it was for a presidential administration to make such a major policy decision in its final months, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said “Biden was elected for a four-year term, not a three-year term.” month.”

“We will use every day of our term to pursue policy interests that we believe are in the best interest of the American people,” he said. “If the incoming administration wants to have a different point of view, that is of course their right.”

“There is only one president at a time,” he added. “The next president can make his own decisions when he takes office.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that there was no such announcement and that “the missiles will speak for themselves.”

Trump was victorious on November 5 and will return to the White House for a second term starting January 20 next year.

Trump campaigned on a promise to end U.S. involvement in wars and instead use taxpayer money to improve Americans’ lives.

He said he would end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours, without saying how.

But one thing is certain: Trump has always viewed himself as a dealmaker and won’t want Biden to get that kind of credit.

His son, Donald Trump Jr., was among the first Republicans to respond.

“The military industrial complex seems to want to ensure that World War III begins before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” he said.

Another Trump supporter, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, also condemned Biden.

“The American people voted on November 5th to oppose these latest decisions by America and do not want to finance or fight foreign wars. We want to solve our own problems,” he wrote in X.

Not all of Trump’s allies, including those who advised him on national security issues during his first term, shared this view; but they had criticized the Biden administration’s approach.

James Gilmore, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, told the BBC that the main problem with Biden’s decision to provide this new capability to Ukraine was that it happened too late in the war.

“My criticism of Biden is the same as every other conservative and Trump supporter, which is that the Biden administration has been slow on this issue,” he said.

Gilmore said he doesn’t know what the president-elect will choose to do about Ukraine once he takes office. “I don’t believe he’s a guy who usually walks away,” he said.

Polls show a large number of Republicans want an end to US support for Ukraine – In a survey conducted by Pew Research, 62 percent of respondents said the United States has no responsibility to support the country against Russia.

Senator JD Vance, who would become Trump’s vice president, has regularly objected to providing weapons to Ukraine. He argued that the United States lacks the production capacity to continue supplying weapons such as the missile systems that Kiev would use to strike Russia.

However, Gilmore said that while the United States has been able to field and develop weapons systems through this process, the United States’ European allies must take a larger role.

“President Trump is absolutely right about this; when Western European countries take action, the alliance becomes stronger,” he said. “The United States cannot continue to act alone. The taxpayer will not allow it, the next administration will not allow it, and neither will I.”

The Russian president has opposed the US-led NATO alliance since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has described any promise of military support by Western allies for Ukraine as a direct intervention and warned of retribution.

His spokesman said on Monday that the US was “adding fuel to the fire”.

Putin has also occasionally discussed the possibility of using nuclear weapons.

Putin believes this can happen, knowing that the construction of nuclear arsenals in accordance with the doctrine of mutual destruction established during the Cold War would bring untold suffering to everyone, including the Russians.

But the Russian leader will be fully aware of the magnitude of the threat posed by long-range missiles supplied by the West.

The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank, published a map of 225 Russian military installations within ATACMS range.

Former US envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker said Biden’s decision would allow Ukraine “to go after airports, ammunition depots, fuel supplies and logistics that Russia has, which are currently in a sanctuary zone in Russia.”

Volker told the BBC that Biden’s decision would cause Russia to act more cautiously.

Rejecting Putin’s threats, Putin said that the Russian leader “should have foreseen that Ukraine will make efforts to respond.”

Ukraine has had ATACMS with a similar range for a while, as well as Storm Shadow missiles from the UK and France, but their numbers are unknown. However, they were not allowed to be used in Russia.

France and the UK are expected to follow the US’s lead and give the same authority to Ukraine. They have not commented so far.

White House officials emphasize to US media that Biden’s change of heart is in response to Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops; This is a signal to Pyongyang not to send more troops.

Gilmore, Trump’s ambassador to the OSCE, told the BBC that he believed “it was Putin who escalated the war” by deploying North Korean troops and that the US “cannot stand aside and let this dictator take over Ukraine”.

“I don’t like it and I take everything very seriously, but the decision is not ours. The decision is imposed on us by Putin, the dictator,” he said.

This move also comes after Russia’s recent attacks on Ukraine.

In the attack on Odessa on Monday, 10 people, including seven police officers, died and 47 people were injured.