ERBIL () - A Russian drone struck a passenger train near Ukraine's border with Poland shortly after a train carrying former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and senior European security officials had passed through the same station, while former CIA Director David Petraeus was aboard another train at the station when the attack occurred, according to reporting by the BBC and other media.
The strike hit the locomotive of a Kyiv-to-Warsaw passenger train at Yahodyn, about two kilometers from the Polish border. Ukrainian authorities said passengers had been evacuated beforehand and no casualties were reported.
The proximity of several prominent Western figures to the attack has heightened attention around the incident, although there is no independently established evidence that they were deliberately targeted.
The BBC, in a report by Jaroslav Lukiv, said Johnson and several European national security advisers, including Britain's Jonathan Powell, had traveled through the area on their way home from the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv. Their train had already left Yahodyn shortly before the strike.
Ukrainian state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said the diplomatic train departed earlier than originally scheduled because the timetable had been changed in response to persistent Russian strike threats.
The company said it was "quite possible"that the diplomatic train had been an intended target, but offered no evidence establishing that conclusion.
At the same time, former CIA Director David Petraeus was aboard a separate train at Yahodyn station when the drone strike occurred, according to the BBC.
Petraeus described the incident as "terrifying"in comments reported by The New York Times.
The presence of both Johnson's delegation shortly before the attack and Petraeus at the station itself gave the incident an unusual diplomatic dimension as Russian strikes increasingly reach infrastructure near Ukraine's borders with European Union and NATO states.
Ukrzaliznytsia said an evacuation warning for passengers aboard the train that was ultimately hit had been issued about 15 minutes before the drone arrived.
The strike damaged the locomotive but caused no reported injuries.
Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who had also attended the Kyiv conference, told the BBC that passengers aboard his train were instructed to prepare for evacuation after it stopped.
They were later told the route was clear and allowed to continue toward the Polish border station of Dorohusk.
Some reports suggested Bildt may have been traveling on the same train as Johnson, although the BBC noted that Johnson had not confirmed specific details of his journey.
Johnson later wrote on X that he did not know what had driven Russian President Vladimir Putin to attack a stationary Ukrainian locomotive near the Polish frontier, calling it another example of the attacks endured by Ukrainian civilians.
He also renewed calls for Kyiv's allies to provide additional air-defense systems.
Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed that its forces had targeted railway infrastructure in western Ukraine, according to Asharq Al-Awsat, saying the facilities were being used to transport military supplies from European countries.
The Russian statement cited in the supplied reporting did not address Ukraine's suggestion that the diplomatic train might have been targeted.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the attack as Russian violence moving directly toward the borders of the European Union and NATO and called for increased pressure on Moscow.
In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk convened an emergency meeting following the incident.
"The escalation of the actions from the Russian side is becoming a reality, and they are getting closer and closer to our border,"Tusk said, according to the BBC.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski separately wrote that Russian President Vladimir Putin was "escalating."
Two Polish border crossings temporarily suspended operations because of the threat from airstrikes, according to Asharq Al-Awsat, before activity later returned to normal.
Rail Network Under Growing Pressure
The Yahodyn strike came amid an apparent increase in Russian attacks on Ukrainian railway infrastructure and facilities near western border crossings.
The BBC reported that two people were killed earlier in the week when Russian drones struck a crossing between Ukraine and Moldova. A female railway conductor was also killed in another drone attack on a passenger train in southern Ukraine, while six railway employees died after a depot in Kyiv was struck earlier this month.
Ukraine's railway network remains especially important because civilian air travel has been suspended since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
That reliance makes railway lines critical not only for Ukrainian civilians but also for foreign officials visiting Kyiv.
Sunday's attack stopped short of causing casualties, but its timing brought that vulnerability into unusually sharp focus: a train carrying Johnson and senior European security officials had only recently departed Yahodyn, while Petraeus remained aboard another train at the station as the strike unfolded.
Whether their presence had any connection to the Russian target selection remains unproven.
