Putin Warns Europe Against Sending Troops as Russian Strikes Kill Civilians in Ukraine
Russian strikes killed eight civilians and wounded dozens more across Ukraine, local officials said Saturday, after President Vladimir Putin warned European governments that sending troops into Ukraine would amount to a direct conflict with Russia.
Speaking to reporters at a BRICS summit in India on Friday, Putin said any European deployment would cross a line Moscow has repeatedly drawn. “Now they are talking about how they are considering sending troops into Ukraine. That means a war with Russia,” he said.
Some European leaders have signaled support for a possible peacekeeping force, a prospect Moscow has repeatedly called unacceptable. Putin also denied that Russia poses any threat to Europe. “There is no such threat and never has been,” he said. “We do not threaten, nor do we intend to threaten, European countries.”
The debate over a European deployment has become one of the most sensitive questions in the war’s endgame. Kyiv and its allies have discussed postwar security guarantees, but Moscow has warned that foreign troops on Ukrainian soil would be treated as legitimate targets.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday that two incidents along Ukraine’s borders with Poland and Moldova this week were a preview of potential intensified Russian provocations at Ukraine’s border crossing points with Europe. Two people died when Russian drones hit the Starokozache border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova on Tuesday night, he said. A “direct threat” to a Polish-Ukrainian crossing point Wednesday night was avoided only through cooperation between Warsaw and Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is under mounting pressure from Russia’s intensifying air campaign, which uses ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to pierce air defenses. Moscow’s attacks have targeted Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter in what Ukrainian officials say is meant to demoralize civilians.
In Zaporizhzhia, Russian drones struck a residential area overnight, killing two people and wounding one, regional head Ivan Fedorov said. One person was killed and three others were wounded in strikes on Kryvyi Rih, according to local officials. In the Black Sea port of Odesa and the surrounding area, 35 people were wounded overnight in what regional head Oleh Kiper called a “massive attack.” Among the buildings hit was a residential high-rise, whose upper floors were completely destroyed.
Three people were killed Saturday when cars were hit by drones in Kramatorsk, in Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk region, officials said. Two more people died in a Russian attack on a grocery store in the Zhytomyr region.
Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces struck two chemical industry facilities in Russia, one in Samara and one in Perm. The governors of the regions did not immediately comment, but the independent Russian online news outlet Astra reported drone attacks on chemical plants in both regions.
In an interview with Deutsche Welle published Saturday, Zelenskyy said he would meet Putin if both leaders were invited to the Group of 20 summit in Miami in December. Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said the possibility of Putin attending the summit had not yet been discussed.
The Kremlin has said in the past that Zelenskyy could come to Moscow if he wants a meeting with Putin, a proposal Kyiv has rejected. “If he really wants to meet with Putin, Putin has already said that he could fly to Moscow,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Saturday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that Russia is “ready for negotiations,” but that what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine “will not be suspended during this period of negotiations.”
On Wednesday, President Trump said he had a “great conversation” with Putin and repeated his claim that he believes the Russian leader wants to make a deal to end the war. “He is wanting to make a deal,” Trump said. “And if Zelenskyy is wanting to make a deal, that would be very nice.”
Trump has repeatedly said he thinks Putin wants to strike a deal to end the fighting, though Russia could withdraw troops and relinquish territory at any point. Asked what the holdup is, Trump said: “The holdup is two people that hate each other. I think more than anything else, it’s two people that hate each other.”
The mix of lethal strikes and conditional diplomacy underscored how the war’s endgame remains shaped by battlefield pressure, European security guarantees, and competing proposals for direct talks.