Boris Johnson, other European officials at Ukrainian train station before Russian strike

Attacks were part of Russian drone strikes that began overnight in the town of Yahodyn, near Polish border

Published Sep 13, 2026  •  3 minute read

In this file photo taken on Sept. 30, 2022, Ukrainians carry their bags as they get off a train from Zaporizhzhia at Przemysl train station in Przemysl, Poland. Photo by Omar Marques /Getty Images

A Russian drone strike in western Ukraine hit a train station shortly after a train carrying former U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson and several top European security officials had left the station on Sunday morning, Ukrainian authorities said.

The strike was part of a Russian drone attack that began overnight in the town of Yahodyn, near Ukraine’s border with Poland.

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Ukraine’s state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said a drone was detected and an evacuation order was issued 15 minutes before the strike, BBC News reported.

“Shortly before the locomotive was hit at the Ukrainian-Polish border, a diplomatic train was at Yagodyn station,” Ukrzaliznytsia said in a statement, per AFP.

“There were, among others, security advisers from several EU member states and former European leaders on board, including former U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson. In another train that was at Yagodyn station at the very moment of the attack was former CIA director David Petraeus.”

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BoJo slams Putin’s ‘warped logic’

Johnson and the European officials were reportedly passing through the station on their way back from a conference in Kyiv.

“I don’t know what warped logic drove Putin to blow up a stationary Ukrainian locomotive on the Polish border this morning,” Johnson said in a post on X Sunday. “What 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.”

A train’s engine was hit in the strike with no casualties reported. At a nearby gas station, two trucks were hit and caught fire, a spokesperson for the Polish Interior Ministry told AFP.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow had “deliberately” struck the locomotive.

“It is precisely to prevent these strikes from spreading further into Europe that Ukrainian men and women fight every day, give their lives and do not allow the aggression to expand,” Zelenskyy said via AFP.

Poland also denounced the strikes, including another near a frontier checkpoint, as an “escalation” in the war.

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Russian escalation expected to continue

But the strikes came as U.S. President Donald Trump called on Zelenskyy to halt attacks on Russian refineries, saying it was causing a shortage of diesel fuel and “there are plenty of other targets.”

Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian oil refineries in a bid to hurt Russia’s war effort.

European nations are meanwhile worried by what they say is increased Russian-orchestrated sabotage acts on their soil.

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s main allies and with Ukrainian airspace closed, trains to Poland have been one of the main routes out of the war-torn country and are being used by refugees.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk chaired an emergency meeting in Warsaw following the strikes, warning he expected Russia to escalate the war “in the coming weeks.” He added: “We cannot exclude that the escalation will also affect our territory… I hope not.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a joint press conference with Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda and Polish President Karol Nawrocki, at the Presidential palace in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo by Mindaugas Kulbis /AP

Peace talks on the horizon?

Russia said it had hit “railway infrastructure used to transport military cargo” from European countries.

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Russian attacks also killed at least two people on Sunday in the frontline city of Kramatorsk. Twenty people, including two children, were also wounded in a second day of attacks on the southern port city of Odesa, Ukrainian officials said.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, said negotiations with Ukraine and the United States on the war could take place in October.

“We do not rule out such a possibility; we are talking about the foreseeable future,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists, cited by Russia’s Ria and Tass news agencies.

Several rounds of negotiations have failed, while U.S.-led efforts stalled during the Middle East war.

In an interview released on Saturday, Zelenskyy said he would be willing to meet Putin at the G20 summit in Miami in December. But Peskov said that was “impossible,” speaking to AFP in New Delhi on Saturday, repeating Moscow’s demand that a meeting could only take place in the Russian capital.

— With files from AFP.

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