A Russian drone hit a passenger train on Ukraine's border with NATO member Poland on Sunday, shortly after former British prime minister Boris Johnson and other European diplomats had used the same line.
The train, on a route frequently used by foreign delegations returning from Kyiv, was attacked just 2 kilometers from the Polish border, Ukraine's railway operator said.
No casualties were reported.
Johnson blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin in a statement after the attack.
"I don’t know what warped logic drove Putin to blow up a stationary Ukrainian locomotive on the Polish border this morning," he wrote.
"So far Putin has been responsible for the deaths of 1700 staff of Ukrzaliznytsia - Ukrainian Railways. They and their daily passengers are 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?"
"We will get this dreadful war over much faster if we all get serious and give them what they need and deserve," he finished.
"This wasn’t our train, but the one just minutes after us by the border crossing. It was evacuated as the drone approached and no one was hurt," Carl Bildt, former Swedish prime minister, said on X/Twitter.
Bildt, Boris Johnson, and other European politicians were returning to Poland by train after attending a security conference in Kyiv when they were awoken at 5 a.m. and prepared to evacuate.
Russia's strike may have been targeting the diplomats' train
"It is entirely possible that the Russian drone's intended target was the diplomatic train, which departed the station earlier than scheduled after train timetables were adjusted in real time because of the constant threat of Russian strikes," Ukraine's railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, said on Telegram.
Johnson left the station shortly before the strike and condemned the attack as "random and senseless" in a post on Instagram.
With the front line largely static, both Moscow and Kyiv have intensified long-distance strikes in recent weeks to try to shift momentum in the war.
Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski described Russia's increasing attacks on NATO's doorstep as "an escalation."
Earlier on Sunday, a truck less than 1 km. from Ukraine's border with Poland was also hit, prompting the Dorohusk-Yahodyn crossing point to briefly halt operations, according to border guards.
Russia's Defense Ministry said it had targeted infrastructure facilitating military cargoes from Europe in Western Ukraine.
Russia has begun targeting Ukraine's border crossings with its Western allies in recent weeks, part of a growing campaign by both sides to erode the other's economic infrastructure more than four years into Russia's invasion.
Johnson joined the conference as an adviser
The former prime minister of the UK was in Ukraine alongside advisors from several other European nations for the 2026 annual meeting of the Yalta European Strategy, a defense conference where specialists discussed potential ceasefire negotiations with Russia with Volodymyr Zelensky’s government.
“ These drone attacks are blind terror against Ukrainian civilians and a dangerous escalation in Putin’s war," said Robin Wagener, a Green Party member of the German Parliament, who was also on board the train.
The Polish Air Force mobilized after the strikes occurred within two kilometers of Polish territory, a NATO member.
“Due to the activity of the Russian Federation’s jet-powered unmanned aerial vehicles conducting strikes on Ukrainian territory, military aviation operations have commenced in Polish airspace,” Polish military personnel said in a statement to social media.
Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attacks afterward.
“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.”