Ukrainian officials have said trains carrying Boris Johnson and other foreign dignitaries were the “likely” intended targets of a Russian drone attack near the Polish border.
The former prime minister was travelling on a charter train from Kyiv when it received a drone alert while approaching Poland.
With concerns mounting that the train could be deliberately targeted, officials made a last-minute change to the timetable, allowing it to cross into Poland ahead of schedule.
A little more than an hour later, another train on the same route was evacuated. Frightened passengers were told to run for safety after a stationary locomotive nearby was struck and burst into flames. The jet-propelled drone landed just one mile inside Ukrainian territory. No one was injured.
Ukraine’s state railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, said it was “quite likely” that Vladimir Putin had intended to hit the train, which was carrying several of Europe’s most senior security advisers.
The rail operator said: “It is quite likely that the target of this Russian drone could also have been the diplomatic train, which departed from the station earlier than planned as part of the real-time review of train schedules due to the constant threat of Russian strikes.”
Ukrzaliznytsia later confirmed that a diplomatic train had been at the site shortly before the Russian drone attack.
The operator said: “Shortly before the locomotive was hit on the border between Ukraine and Poland at the Yagodin station, a diplomatic train was present, carrying, among others, security advisors from several EU member states, as well as former European leaders, including former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.”
A rail worker assesses the damage after a train was hit by a Russian missile near Ukraine’s border with Poland.
Frantic video shared on social media showed passengers desperately fleeing the train before the attack.
This photo shows the damage to the front of the locomotive in the aftermath of the drone strike
It is now feared that an earlier train carrying Boris Johnson (pictured last week) and other political figures was the target of the attack
‘Another train, which was at the Yagodin station at the time of the attack, carried former CIA Director David Petraeus.’
Security experts said last night the near-miss could be ‘a Mafia-style message straight from the Kremlin’ aimed at Mr Johnson – a staunch supporter of Ukraine who was returning from a security conference in Kyiv.
But a defiant Mr Johnson told the Daily Mail: ‘Nothing will deter me from using Ukrainian railways or going back to Ukraine.’
Passengers on the charter trains included UK national security adviser Jonathan Powell and former CIA chief David Petraeus. Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt said passengers on his train had been told to prepare for evacuation, but were then allowed to continue their journey.
The terrifying escalation demonstrates that Vladimir Putin is ‘playing with fire right on the border of the European Union and Nato’, said a German MP who was on the same train as Mr Johnson.
One passenger, a British economist who wanted to remain anonymous, was on a separate train travelling from Kyiv to Chelm, in Poland, when he witnessed the attack.
He told the Guardian: ‘We spent 10 hours at the border and were evacuated three times. On the third evacuation a missile came over and totalled a locomotive in front of our train.’
He said railway officials then instructed passengers to hide in bushes by a nearby lake, describing the Ukrainian response as ‘timely and disciplined’, adding that passengers were given ‘good warning of the evacuation’ and that officials ‘had a plan, which everyone followed’.
Mr Johnson and other officials had been in Kyiv for the 2026 annual meeting of the Yalta European Strategy. He is pictured addressing the conference earlier this year in February
Mr Johnson hit out later on Sunday at Russian leader Vladimir Putin (pictured on Sunday) in a post on X
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Robin Wagener, a Green Party member of the Bundestag, said: ‘These drone attacks are blind terror against Ukrainian civilians and a dangerous escalation. We must finally put a clear stop to this terror.’
Ukrainian rail chiefs said a drone strike so close to its border with an EU country was ‘unprecedented’ and raised fears that Mr Johnson and his fellow VIPs had been targeted.
‘This is the first time the Russians have launched a massive attack towards our western frontier,’ Ukrainian railways boss Oleksandr Pertsovskyi said.
‘Whether or not it’s a coincidence that this happened at the same time as a train carrying high-profile foreign figures was passing through this specific crossing, that we cannot say. But it certainly poses many questions.’
Daily Mail columnist Mr Johnson, 62, was among scores of foreign dignitaries who had travelled to Kyiv for a major conference on the country’s security, which finished on Saturday evening.
As members of the European delegation were approaching the Yahodyn crossing to Poland on an overnight train to Warsaw shortly after 7am local time, some passengers were given an evacuation warning.
But after being dispatched earlier than scheduled, the train safely crossed into Poland at 7.46am. At 9.15am, the next train on the route was evacuated, and a shunting locomotive burst into flames when it was struck just before 9.30am.
A nearby petrol station also exploded after being hit, Ukrainian media reported, with a fireball spreading to nearby lorries.
Peter Dickinson, editor of Ukraine Alert at the Atlantic Council think-tank, told the Mail: ‘This was a Mafia-style message straight from the Kremlin.’
Describing it as a ‘deliberate and calculated attack’, he said Moscow would have been ‘very well aware that plenty of senior foreign officials would be traveling along that train route’.
‘It is part of a broader intimidation campaign currently being waged by the Kremlin as Putin seeks to bully Europe into abandoning Ukraine,’ he added.
Maksym Kuzakhmetov, a prominent Russian journalist and historian in exile, said: ‘I have no difficulty whatsoever believing this was a deliberate, planned attack.
‘The Kremlin has little hesitation in ordering the physical elimination of anyone Putin comes to regard as a personal enemy.
‘Western politicians who openly back Ukraine are anathema to him, especially someone as outspoken and steadfast in his support for Kyiv as Boris Johnson.’
Mr Johnson’s train was also carrying Gunter Sautter, one of German chancellor Friedrich Merz’s closest foreign and security-policy advisers, as well as security advisers from France and Italy.
They were returning via what should have been the only safe route out of Ukraine after discussions with president Volodymyr Zelensky’s government about possible peace negotiations with Russia.
The trains were all passing through the Yahodyn border crossing, one of the country’s most important links with the EU following the suspension of civilian air travel.
The Conservatives described yesterday’s incident as a ‘stark escalation’ by Moscow and urged the Government to increase defence spending. Stuart Anderson, who was appointed shadow minister for war preparedness yesterday, said: ‘It is yet another reminder that Russian aggression is a real and growing threat to European security and, ultimately, our own national security.’
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said: ‘Reckless, dangerous attacks on civilian infrastructure so close to Poland underline the wider security threat Russia poses.’
Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said ‘Putin’s terror was knocking directly on the doors of the EU and Nato’.
‘Putin needs to understand that his barbarism will be met with decisive action. This is the only way to stop him.’