The special train was traveling on a rail line where a Russian drone the same morning reportedly struck the locomotive of a regular passenger service. A chartered train carrying former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and senior European officials was partially evacuated near the Polish border early on Sunday amid a Russian drone threat in the area, German weekly Der Spiegel reported. The special train was traveling along a railway line where a Russian drone the same morning struck the locomotive of a regular Kyiv–Warsaw passenger train about two kilometers from the Polish border, according to Der Spiegel. The exact timing of the two incidents was not immediately clear. The chartered train was traveling overnight from Kyiv toward Poland when it stopped near the border at around 5 a.m. because of drone strikes in the area, the German weekly reported. Conductors woke passengers to evacuate them, but the all-clear was given shortly afterward when no further drones were detected. Johnson and the other passengers were unharmed, Der Spiegel wrote. It was not immediately clear whether Johnson himself left the train during the partial evacuation, Der Spiegel added. Also reportedly aboard were Günter Sautter, a foreign and security policy adviser to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s as well as European security officials, German lawmakers, diplomats and academics. They were returning from the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv, where officials, including Poland's Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, held talks on possible peace negotiations with Russia. The same morning, a Russian drone struck the locomotive of a regular Kyiv–Warsaw passenger train traveling on the same railway line, according to Ukrainian rail officials. None of the 206 people aboard that service were injured. Polish state-owned passenger train operator PKP Intercity said none of the passengers were Polish citizens. In a separate incident overnight, another drone struck a gas station near the Dorohusk–Yahodyn border crossing, less than a kilometer from the Polish frontier, setting two trucks on fire. Polish authorities said the attacks did not violate the country’s airspace. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had targeted infrastructure in western Ukraine used to facilitate deliveries of military cargo from Europe. Ukraine operates several border crossings with NATO member Poland through which a significant share of military and humanitarian assistance from its allies enters the country. The attacks fit a recent pattern of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s western border links, including crossings with Romania and Moldova.
Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was returning from Kyiv on a chartered train. Photo by Lucy North/PA Images via Getty Images
