NEW DELHI, September 12 — Vladimir Putin used a summit of the BRICS group of emerging economies in India to warn that any deployment of European troops into Ukraine would amount to direct conflict with Russia, sharpening a message Moscow has repeated as European leaders weigh a potential peacekeeping force. “Now they’re talking about how they’re considering sending troops into Ukraine. That means a war with Russia,” the Russian president told reporters on Friday, September 11.
In the same remarks he denied that Russia poses any threat to Europe. “There is no such threat and never has been,” he said, adding, “We do not threaten, nor do we intend to threaten, European countries.” The warning lands against a backdrop of cross-border incidents that have unsettled European capitals.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday, September 10, that the events amounted to 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 the night of Tuesday, September 8, according to Tusk. A “direct threat” to a Polish-Ukrainian crossing point the following night, on Wednesday, September 9, was avoided only through cooperation between Warsaw and Kyiv, he said.
A weekend of strikes across Ukraine
Russian strikes killed eight civilians and wounded dozens of others across Ukraine, local officials said on Saturday, September 12. In Zaporizhzhia, two people were killed and one wounded when Russian drones struck a residential area overnight, according to the regional head, Ivan Fedorov. In Kryvyi Rih, one person died and three others were wounded, local officials said.
Odesa took the heaviest toll of the night. In the Black Sea port and its surrounding area, 35 people were wounded in what the 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 on Saturday when cars were struck by drones in Kramatorsk, in Ukraine’s partially occupied Donetsk region, local officials said, along with a further two people in a Russian attack on a grocery store in the Zhytomyr region.
Pressure on the power grid, and a Ukrainian counterstrike
Ukraine is under mounting pressure from Russia’s intensifying air campaign, which uses ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to pierce defenses. Moscow’s attacks have targeted Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter in what officials say is meant to demoralize civilians. Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces struck two chemical industry facilities.
The BRICS summit in India brought together leaders of the emerging economies group, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, among others. The events mark a continued escalation in the more than decade-long conflict that began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and expanded with the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
What is at stake in the coming weeks is whether European capitals translate their pledges on a peacekeeping force into a concrete deployment plan — and whether Moscow’s warnings, delivered from a summit stage in India, are matched by further pressure along the border crossings that Tusk has described as a preview of what may come.
