Russia strikes Ukrainian train minutes after Johnson, officials pass through

A Russian drone struck a train near the Ukraine-Poland border at Yahodyn shortly after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and a group of senior European security officials had passed through the same station on a different train.

The strike hit the train’s engine, but no casualties were reported, with Ukrainian authorities confirming that all passengers had been evacuated safely.

Johnson had been travelling with other European national security advisers, including the UK’s Jonathan Powell, on their way back from a security conference in Kyiv when the attack occurred roughly 2km from the Polish border.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had targeted “railway infrastructure” in western Ukraine, but Ukraine’s state railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, suggested the diplomatic train itself may have been the intended target, noting that the group’s train had departed earlier than scheduled due to a timetable change driven by ongoing threats of Russian strikes.

The company added that an evacuation order for passengers on the train that was eventually hit came only 15 minutes before the strike.

Former CIA director David Petraeus, who was aboard another train at the station when the drone hit, described the episode as deeply unsettling and accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians.

Other officials who had travelled through the station also spoke of the close call.

Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt said his train received an order to prepare for evacuation shortly after stopping, before being cleared minutes later to continue to the Polish border station of Dorohusk.

Warsaw Security Forum chair Katarzyna Pisarska, who was seated in the same carriage as Johnson and Powell, said the strike came about half an hour after their train had already crossed into Poland.

Johnson himself condemned the attack publicly, questioning the logic behind striking a stationary Ukrainian locomotive so close to the Polish border.