Fresh Russian strikes across Ukraine have left three civilians dead and dozens injured, officials said, as President Vladimir Putin warned that any move by European countries to deploy troops to Ukraine would, in his words, mean direct war with Russia.
Ukraine is facing growing strain as Russia steps up an air assault that relies on ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to punch through air defences.
Officials say Moscow has been aiming at Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter, a campaign they describe as intended to sap morale and unsettle civilians.
In the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, two people were killed and one other was wounded when Russian drones struck a residential area overnight, according to regional head Ivan Fedorov.
Officials also reported one death and three injuries after strikes on Kryvyi Rih.
In and around the Black Sea port city of Odesa, 28 people were wounded during what regional head Oleh Kiper described as a “massive attack”.
The aftermath of the Russian attack in Odesa, Ukraine
One of the sites hit was a residential high-rise building, with its upper floors completely destroyed.
Putin, speaking to reporters at the Brics summit in India yesterday, said: “Now they’re talking about how they’re considering sending troops into Ukraine. That means a war with Russia.”
Several European leaders have voiced support for the idea of a potential peacekeeping force, an option Moscow has repeatedly rejected as unacceptable.
Putin also insisted Russia posed no danger to Europe, saying “there is no such threat and never has been”.
“We do not threaten, nor do we intend to threaten, European countries,” he said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday that two incidents this week near Ukraine’s borders with Poland and Moldova offered a glimpse of what he called the potential for intensified Russian provocations at Ukraine’s crossing points with Europe.
He said two people died on Tuesday when Russian drones struck the Starokozache border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova, and that on Wednesday a “direct threat” to a Polish-Ukrainian crossing point was averted only through co-operation between Warsaw and Kyiv.
Separately, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Deutsche Welle in an interview published today that he would meet Putin if both leaders were invited to the Group of 20 summit of wealthy and developing nations in December in Miami.
Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said the question of Putin attending the summit had not yet been discussed.
The Kremlin has previously said Zelensky could travel to Moscow if he wanted to meet Putin, an idea 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.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said Russia is “ready for negotiations”, but added that the so-called “special military operation”, as Moscow describes its war in Ukraine, “will not be suspended during this period of negotiations”.
