Over the last month, the Ukraine-Russia conflict has significantly escalated into a broader regional war, with North Korean troops fighting on the front lines and South Korea signaling possible involvement in arming Ukraine. Experts say the Biden administration has not only not attempted to de-escalate the increasingly volatile conflict but has actively escalated it and moved the world closer to an expansive war.

On Sunday, a Kremlin official warned South Korea that Russia will respond “in every way that we find necessary” if the nation provides arms to Ukraine. The comments came after South Korea indicated that they are considering sending military aid directly to Ukraine in response to North Korea deploying roughly 11,000 troops to Russia’s front lines, with the first reported North Korean casualties occurring Monday.

This new development is only the latest escalation to a conflict that was heightened last week, when the Biden administration for the first time gave Ukraine permission to use U.S.-made ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) against Russia, in what has been described as “a major policy shift.” The attack is reported to have destroyed an ammunition warehouse within Russian territory. At the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a lowering in the threshold of what his country would consider an attack worthy of a possible nuclear response, with the Kremlin press secretary stating, “Aggression against the Russian Federation by any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state is considered a joint attack.”

Days later, Russia for the first time in the Ukraine conflict launched an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in response to Ukraine’s ATACMS attack.

As the battlefield escalations mount, so too do the number of countries who are indirectly involved in the conflict. China has increased sales of tools to produce armaments to Russia and has also directly supplied the country with long-range drones. In addition, Iran has supplied Russia with short-range missiles.

“North Korea has made this move. We have made a move. Russia has now responded. Iran is involved. South Korea is thinking about getting involved. Our allies have now extended the range of their missiles as well,” Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for White House national security adviser, remarked on Sunday. “We need to bring this to a responsible end. We need to restore deterrence, restore peace and get ahead of this escalation ladder rather than responding to it.”

Military experts like Lt. Col. (Ret.) Bob Maginnis agree, observing that the Biden administration’s strategy of showering Ukraine with over $100 billion in military aid in hopes of an outright military victory instead of working to deter the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine almost three years ago appears to have failed. Since its surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in August, Ukraine has since lost over 40% of the territory that it gained.

Maginnis, who serves as Family Research Council’s senior fellow for National Security, surmises that the Biden administration may believe that Ukraine can still defeat Russia’s larger military. “Evidently, team Biden believes stopping Russia in Ukraine will prevent a broader war,” he told The Washington Stand. “Unfortunately, Ukraine is losing the war with Russia just as the Russians and their allies like the North Koreans pick up the fight.”

“On the nuclear front, many people don’t believe President Putin will use nuclear weapons against Ukraine,” he added. “However, that’s more of a hope and not based on any firm intelligence. Putin’s new nuclear doctrine clearly states that our help with long-range missiles used by Ukraine against Russian targets makes us complicit and vulnerable to a nuclear response.”

At the same time, Maginnis believes that Biden’s go-ahead for Ukraine to use U.S.-made ballistic missiles was a clear move to undermine the incoming Trump administration. “There is no other way to view Biden’s decision to allow Kyiv to use ATACMS inside Russia. This move makes Mr. Trump’s job of bringing about a quick peace far more difficult.”

As to what the best path forward may be for the incoming Trump administration to establish peace between the two countries, Maginnis emphasized that it will likely require a multi-pronged approach.

“President-elect Trump is known as a businessman, a transactionalist,” he noted. “I suspect he is already dealing with both Putin and [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky and seeking a compromise that ends the war. There are a number of potential ingredients such as the establishment of a demilitarized zone, security guarantees, a promise that Ukraine won’t be welcomed into NATO, lifting of sanctions against Russia, and much more.”