Russian Drone Hits Ukrainian Train Just After Former CIA Chief, Top European Officials Leave Station

A Russian drone struck a train on the Ukraine–Poland border on Sept. 13, just moments after a group of European and American officials had disembarked a locomotive using the same line.

Among the dignitaries who just avoided disaster were former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, former CIA Director David Petraeus, and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt.

The train, which was on a route frequently used by foreign delegations returning from Kyiv, was attacked just more than a mile from the Polish border, Ukrainian railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said in a Sept. 13 post on Telegram, adding that there were no casualties.

In a later Telegram post the same day, Ukrzaliznytsia stated that it was “quite likely that the target of this Russian drone could also have been the diplomatic train, which departed from the station earlier than planned as part of the real-time review of train schedules due to the constant threat of Russian strikes.”

Johnson, who was a vocal supporter of Ukraine during his tenure in 10 Downing Street and has remained so since his departure in 2022, said in a Sept. 13 post on X that he didn’t know what “warped logic” drove Russian President Vladimir Putin to blow up the locomotive.

“We can say for sure is that this is the kind of random and senseless attack Ukrainians are enduring every day—even on civilian railways,” he said.

Johnson said that Putin had been responsible for the death of 1,700 Ukrzaliznytsia staff during the war, describing the railway workers and passengers as “absolutely heroic.”

“When are we going to give them the air defenses they need? Why won’t we unfreeze Putin’s cash and give it to Ukraine? There is more than 140 billion [Euros] in a Belgian bank account—and about 10 billion [pounds] in London. Britain could show a lead,” Johnson said, adding that it was clear that “the Ukrainians are going to win.”

In an interview with The New York Times after the incident on Sunday, Petraeus, also a former U.S. Army general, said that “for those who have not been under fire, this was terrifying.”

He said that a jet-powered Russian drone, later identified by photos, had detonated after striking the locomotive of the train next to the carriage he had traveled in.

“This is the act of a truly barbaric leader trying to terrorize Ukrainian civilians,” he said, adding that there was “no military justification” for such an act.

Bildt posted a video of people evacuating the train that was hit, saying it was one that arrived just minutes after the one he had been aboard.

“Our train just had an evacuation warning but could proceed to Dorohusk,” he said, adding that Russian attacks against Ukraine are “intensifying.”

Poland, a NATO member state, described the attack on the train as an escalation, with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying that “what can be expected is that the coming weeks and months will be a period of very intensified actions from the Russian side,” at a special briefing of the Government Security Centre on Sept. 13.

He added that Warsaw “cannot rule out” that this escalation will affect Polish territory.

The Russian Ministry of Defense did not comment directly on the incident, but did say that it had carried out attacks on “locomotives and military railway trains used to transport various military cargoes across Ukraine, among other things,” Russian state news agency TASS reported on Sept. 14.

The attack comes just days after Putin warned that European countries sending troops to Ukraine would mean “a war with Russia.”

“Now they’re talking about how they’re considering sending troops into Ukraine,” Putin told reporters on Sept. 11 at the 18th BRICS Summit in India. “That means a war with Russia.”

Putin said that European countries were frightening their own citizens by warning about an “imaginary threat” from Russia. He said Russia did not present any threat to Europe.

“There is no such threat and never has been,” Putin said.

“We do not threaten European countries, and we have no intention of threatening them.”