A charter train carrying senior officials from a conference in Kyiv may have escaped the attack by leaving earlier than scheduled, according to Ukrainian rail officials. A specially chartered train carrying diplomats including former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may have been the intended target of a Russian drone strike on a train bound for Warsaw, Ukraine’s rail operator has said. The Kyiv-Warsaw train was struck at Yahodyn station near the Polish border on Sunday morning. No one was injured in the attack and the train was evacuated around 15 minutes prior to impact. But the diplomatic train carrying Johnson and numerous European security officials from a major strategy conference in Kyiv may have been the intended target, Ukrzaliznytsia, the country’s rail operator, said. “It is quite likely that the target of this Russian drone may also have been the diplomatic train, which—due to real-time schedule adjustments necessitated by the constant threat of Russian attacks—had departed the station earlier than scheduled,” the company said in a statement. ‘Terrifying’ says ex-CIA chief At the time the Warsaw-bound locomotive was struck by a jet-powered drone, another train carrying former CIA Director David Petraeus was also in the station. Petraeus described the incident as “terrifying” in an interview with the New York Times. “This is the act of a truly barbaric leader trying to terrorize Ukrainian civilians," he also said. Johnson also took aim at the Kremlin in an X post about the incident. “I don't know what warped logic drove Putin to blow up a stationary Ukrainian locomotive on the Polish border this morning,” Johnson wrote on 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.” The former British prime minister went on to say that Putin had so far been responsible for the deaths of more than 1,700 Ukrzaliznytsia staff, whom he described as “absolutely heroic.”
