Russian drone hits locomotive near Polish border after Boris Johnson train passes
A Russian drone struck the engine of a stationary Ukrainian locomotive 800m from the Polish border on Sunday, shortly after a train carrying former prime minister Boris Johnson and senior European officials had passed along the same line. No casualties were reported. BBC
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the strike landed 800m from the Polish border. Russia said on Sunday it had struck railway infrastructure in western Ukraine. Mr Johnson described the target as a stationary Ukrainian locomotive on the Polish border struck that morning.
Mr Johnson travelled from Ukraine to Poland alongside European diplomats and was unharmed, The Telegraph reported. He had been returning from a conference in Kyiv with senior European security advisers, including the UK's Jonathan Powell. The group travelled along the same rail line that was then hit.
The train carrying Mr Johnson and the European officials was halted over a drone threat near the Polish border, Anadolu Agency reported. All air travel in Ukraine has been suspended since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. With air travel suspended, the group travelled by rail.
Other strikes on the railway system have been reported in recent months. A female conductor died this week in a Russian drone attack on a passenger train in southern Ukraine. Six staff of Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine's state railway operator, were killed earlier this month when a railway depot in Kyiv was hit. In January, a Russian strike on a crowded passenger train in the north-eastern Kharkiv region left five people dead.
The broader context here is operational rather than ceremonial. For officials who arrange travel to Kyiv, the sequence will matter more than the personalities. A halt over a drone threat, followed by a strike on an engine on the same line, points to disruption as a tool in itself. It does not need casualties to force timetables to change.
In my view, the border location is the detail Westminster will notice. Eight hundred metres is short. It narrows the gap between an attack inside Ukraine and an incident with direct implications for a NATO member and EU state. That closeness is politically sensitive even when, as here, no casualties were reported and the train involved was stationary.
Looking at what this means for future visits, the trade-off is familiar to anyone who handles ministerial travel. Physical presence in Kyiv carries weight. Rail is the only practical route while air travel remains suspended. The cost is exposure, not only for visiting leaders but for Ukrainian railway staff, who have absorbed repeated losses. The deaths this week, earlier this month and in January show where that burden falls.
