Putin warns Europe against deploying troops to Ukraine, threatens direct conflict

Vladimir Putin has drawn a sharp line before European governments: send troops to Ukraine, and Russia will treat it as an act of war. Issued on the eve of a BRICS summit, the warning is both a diplomatic signal and a strategic calculation — an attempt to freeze Western deliberation before it hardens into action. In the long arc of great-power rivalry, such moments remind us that the distance between deterrence and catastrophe is measured not in miles, but in the resolve of those who must decide whether a threat is a boundary or a bluff.