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A Russian drone struck the locomotive of a Kyiv to Warsaw passenger train early on Sunday, September 13, about 1.2 miles from the Polish border in Ukraine's Volyn region, Al Jazeera reported. Former British prime minister Boris Johnson and former CIA director David Petraeus were at Yahodyn station nearby when it happened. Ukrainian Railways said no one was injured.
The rail operator said Johnson was travelling on a diplomatic train carrying security advisers from several EU member states and former European leaders. Petraeus was aboard a separate train at the same station. The operator did not say how far the officials were from the carriage that was hit.
A second drone came down less than a mile from the Polish border at the Yahodyn crossing, a Polish border guard spokeswoman told Reuters. The crossing closed temporarily during the attack. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the strikes landed on the Ukraine-Poland border itself, correcting an earlier statement that placed the impact on the crossing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow hit the locomotive deliberately. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, speaking in Kyiv, said the strike fell a few hundred meters from the Polish border and affected the safety of Polish citizens. Polish President Donald Tusk said after a security meeting on Sunday that Russian escalation near the border was becoming a fact. He pointed to Moscow's growing use of jet-powered long-range strike drones, which fly faster and are harder to intercept than propeller-driven models.
Yahodyn sits on one of several Poland-Ukraine crossings that carry much of the military and humanitarian aid sent by Western allies. With Ukrainian airspace closed, the same rail lines serve as the standard ground corridor for visiting delegations. Timetables are adjusted in real time around strike warnings, and the diplomatic train left the station ahead of schedule on Sunday.
Russian munitions have landed on Polish soil before. In 2022 a missile exploded in the village of Przewodow, killing two people. Writing on X afterward, Johnson said he did not know what "warped logic" drove the attack on the locomotive, and praised the Ukrainian rail staff who stayed with the train.
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