Russia hits Ukraine train line used by foreign officials

The locomotive of a passenger train traveling from Kyiv to Warsaw was on Sunday morning hit by a Russian drone just kilometers from the Polish border, the Ukrainian minister of foreign affairs said, as Moscow’s airstrikes push closer to NATO territory.

The attack happened minutes after another train carrying European officials including former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt and former UK British prime minister Boris Johnson left the station on the way back from an annual conference in Kyiv. Former CIA director David Petraeus was at the station when the drone hit, the New York Times reported.

The strike marked the latest escalation by Russia in the war — in its fifth year — as acts of sabotage, arson and drone incursions proliferate across the continent.

A locomotive damaged in a Russian drone attack is pictured at Yahodyn railway station near Ukraine’s border with Poland on Sunday.

Photo: Ukrzaliznytsia Press Office via AP

“This is Putin’s terror ‘knocking’ directly on the doors of the EU and NATO,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said in a post on social media, calling for Europe to increase sanctions against Russia.

Ukraine’s state railway operator confirmed a strike on a train in Volyn, about 2km from the Ukraine-Poland border in northwestern Ukraine.

Russian authorities have not yet commented.

Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski said there was no violation of the border, but called the incident “escalation” by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The drones involved in the incident were Geran-5 jet-powered drones, Polish authorities said.

Kremlin forces “struck a passenger train locomotive,” the railway company Ukrzaliznytsia said on Telegram.

“The monitoring group warned the train crew about the threat in advance, thanks to which no one was injured,” it said.

The train, which had 208 people aboard, would continue on to Poland after a delay at the border of about six hours, the Polish railways said.

Sunday’s strike was the second this weekend, Ukrzaliznytsia said.

Sybiha late on Saturday posted images of railway facilities struck in Lutsk in northwestern Ukraine and Fastiv, southwest of Kyiv.

“Unable to achieve its goals on the battlefield, Russia attempts to make the entire territory of Ukraine a battlefield and turns to systematic attacks against civilians, trains, and the infrastructure that keeps the country moving,” he said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, speaking after an emergency meeting with top civilian and military leaders, said he cannot exclude the potential of escalation by Russia to Poland’s territories in the next weeks or months, including attempts to disrupt or paralyze border crossings.

Poland would consider how to mobilize allies to be prepared for a common response if needed, he said.

Images on social media also showed a large fire at a gasoline filling station close to the border crossing between Yahodyn in Ukraine and Dorohusk in Poland.

Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna said on social media that members of his team had been “stuck at this very border crossing, unable to leave Ukraine because of the Russian drone threat.”