Putin Warns Europe: Troops in Ukraine Mean War With Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin put European governments on notice Friday that any deployment of troops into Ukraine would amount to a direct act of war against Russia, issuing the warning at a BRICS summit being held in India while Russian forces simultaneously launched a broad assault that left at least eight Ukrainian civilians dead and scores wounded.

"Now they're talking about how they're considering sending troops into Ukraine," Putin told reporters at the summit. "That means a war with Russia." He further asserted that Russia neither threatens European nations nor intends to do so — claims that Ukrainian and Polish officials flatly contradicted, pointing to what they characterized as a sustained pattern of Russian provocations along Ukraine's western frontier.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said two separate incidents earlier in the week near Ukraine's borders with Poland and Moldova signaled an escalation of Russian aggression at European crossing points. Two people were killed when Russian drones hit the Starokozache checkpoint connecting Ukraine and Moldova on Tuesday night. A threat targeting a Polish-Ukrainian border crossing the next night was neutralized through joint action between Warsaw and Kyiv, Tusk said.

Strikes across Ukraine during the same period were sweeping in scale. In Odesa, a massive overnight barrage of drones and missiles left 35 people injured and gutted the upper floors of an apartment tower, according to regional governor Oleh Kiper. Ukrainian tennis star Dayana Yastremska was among the residents whose homes were destroyed; she shared photographs online of the charred building where her family had lived. "A Russian missile destroyed our apartment in Odesa," she wrote. In Zaporizhzhia, two people died and one was injured when a drone slammed into a residential area. Three additional people were killed when drones hit cars in Kramatorsk, and two more fatalities were recorded after a Russian strike leveled a food store in the Zhytomyr region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that his forces had struck two chemical industry facilities inside Russian territory — one in Samara and another in Perm — as part of Ukraine's ongoing counter-pressure campaign. Russian independent outlet Astra confirmed drone strikes on chemical plants in both regions.

In a separate development at sea, the Ukrainian Navy said one of its unmanned surface vessels sank a Russian drone ship in the Black Sea — an engagement that military analysts called the first recorded battle between naval drone craft.

On the diplomatic front, Zelenskyy said in an interview with Deutsche Welle that he would be willing to sit down with Putin if both leaders received invitations to the Group of 20 gathering scheduled for Miami in December. The Kremlin brushed aside the overture. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated that Putin had already indicated Zelenskyy could come to Moscow if he wanted a meeting — a precondition Kyiv has consistently refused. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow is "ready for negotiations" but that military operations would not pause during any talks.

President Trump, who spoke with Putin earlier in the week and called it a "great conversation," again argued that the Russian leader has genuine interest in ending the conflict. "He is wanting to make a deal," Trump said, urging Zelenskyy to show comparable willingness.

Several European governments have already pledged contingents to a prospective peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, an idea Moscow has deemed unacceptable since early in the war.