Trump allies make WW3 warning over Biden missile move in Ukraine

President Joe Biden's apparent 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 has not commented, but he won the election after promising to end the war - and several people close to him have condemned the move as dangerous escalation.

Biden has committed tens of billions of dollars to Kyiv's war effort, and at the weekend he reportedly ditched a long-standing red line on Ukraine's use of American weaponry to launch attacks deep into Russia.

Donald Trump Jr tweeted that the president was trying to "get World War Three going" before his father took office.

Biden's decision has not been formally confirmed and it may never be.

When asked about how typical it would be for a presidential administration to take such a significant policy decision in its final months, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Biden was "elected to a four year-term, not a term of three years and 10 months."

"We will use every day of our term to pursue policy interests that we believe are in the interests of the American people," he said. "If the incoming administration wants to take a different view, that is, of course, their right to do so."

"There's one president at a time," he added. "When the next president takes office, he can make his own decisions."

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said no such announcement was forthcoming - "missiles will speak for themselves".

Polls suggest a large number of Republicans want US support for Ukraine to stop - 62% told a poll by Pew Research the US had no responsibility to support the country against Russia.

Senator JD Vance, who will be Trump's vice-president, has regularly objected to providing arms to Ukraine. He argued that the US lacks the manufacturing capacity to continue providing weapons like the missile systems that Kyiv will use to strike within Russia.

Gilmore, however, said the US was able to backfill and upgrade its weapon systems through this process, but he said the US's European allies would need to take on a bigger role.

"President Trump is exactly right about this - the alliance is stronger when Western European countries step up to the plate," he said. "The United States cannot continue to act alone. The taxpayer won't permit it, the next administration won't permit it, and I wouldn't, either."

Since launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia's president has been railing against the US-led Nato alliance - and described every pledge of military support by the Western allies for Ukraine as a direct involvement and warned of retribution.

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

At times, Putin has mooted the possibility of using nuclear weapons, too.

Few believe this may come to pass as, under the mutual-destruction doctrine established during the Cold War when nuclear arsenals were built up, Putin knows their use would bring untold suffering to all, including Russians.