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A Russian drone struck a stationary train near the Ukraine-Poland border in the early hours of Sunday, hitting the locomotive shortly after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and a group of senior European security officials had travelled along the same rail line, according to Ukrainian authorities.
No casualties were reported. Ukraine's state railway company, Ukrzaliznytsia, said all passengers had been evacuated after a jet-propelled drone was detected roughly 15 minutes before the strike at Yahodyn, a border town in the Volyn region. Russia said it had struck "railway infrastructure" in western Ukraine.
Ukrzaliznytsia said the train carrying Johnson and other officials had been at Yahodyn station earlier and had departed ahead of its scheduled time.
"Quite possibly, the target of this drone could have been the diplomatic train, which had left the station earlier than expected because of the timetable change, due to constant threats of Russian strikes," the company said.
Former CIA director David Petraeus was reported by the railway authority to have been aboard a separate train at Yahodyn station at the time of the strike.
Polish authorities said the drone had struck close to the Polish border; a spokeswoman for the Polish border guard told Reuters the site was about 800 metres from the frontier, and that the nearby border crossing was temporarily closed during the attack.
Ukrzaliznytsia separately said the locomotive hit in Volyn had been struck roughly 2 kilometres from the Polish border.
Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who had also attended a conference in Kyiv alongside Johnson and other officials, said passengers on his train were initially told to prepare to evacuate.
"On the train I was on we received order to prepare evacuation after it had stopped. But after a number of minutes we were informed that it was clear and we could proceed," he told the BBC.
Writing on social media, Johnson said, "I don't know what warped logic drove Putin to blow up a stationary Ukrainian locomotive on the Polish border this morning."
He described the strike as part of a pattern of "random and senseless" attacks on civilian rail infrastructure, and said Russian strikes had killed 1,700 Ukrzaliznytsia staff.
Johnson called for allies to supply Ukraine with additional air defences and to release frozen Russian assets, citing more than €140 billion held in a Belgian bank account and about £10 billion in London.
"The Ukrainians are going to win, that much was clear from the last three days in their wonderful country," he said, adding that faster, more decisive Western support would shorten the war.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha condemned the strike, initially describing it as hitting the border crossing at Yahodyn before clarifying his statement.
He called it part of "Putin's terror 'knocking' directly on the doors of the EU and NATO," writing on X that "Russian barbarians are at your gate, dear partners."
He renewed calls for further sanctions on Moscow, saying, "Putin needs to understand that his barbarism will be met with decisive action that increases the cost of war for him to an unacceptable level. This is the only way to stop him."
Ukraine operates several border crossings with Poland, through which a significant share of military and humanitarian aid from its allies is delivered into the country.
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The attack is the latest in a series of strikes on Ukraine's railway system in recent months.
Earlier this month, six Ukrzaliznytsia employees were killed when a rail depot was hit in Kyiv, and a female conductor died this week in a drone attack on a passenger train in southern Ukraine.
In January, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned as "terrorism" a Russian strike on a crowded passenger train in the northeastern Kharkiv region that killed five people.
Ukraine's rail network has served as the country's principal mode of long-distance transportation since all commercial air travel was suspended following the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, making the railway system a critical link for civilians, officials and international visitors alike.
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