Donald Trump has said he “vehemently” disagrees with the decision to permit Ukraine to strike targets within Russia with US-supplied long-range missiles.

The president-elect said the policy switch by Joe Biden’s administration had escalated the war between Russia and Ukraine, and “made things worse”.

“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” Mr Trump told Time in an interview to mark being named the magazine’s person of the year for a second time.

“Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done.”

Mr Biden, the outgoing president, took the decision last month on the use of Atacms rockets within Russia by Ukrainian forces.