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Russian drone hits train near Polish border
September 14, 2026
A Russian drone hit a train near the Ukraine-Poland border crossing at Yahodyn on September 13; passengers were evacuated and no casualties were reported.
Yahodyn sits on Ukraine's border with Poland, across from the Polish crossing at Dorohusk, on a rail route between Kyiv and Warsaw that carries passengers and military cargo from European countries.
Key facts
- Russia constructed the Crimea bridge, which also goes by the name Kerch Bridge, in the years after its 2014 invasion and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
- According to the same account, passengers aboard the train that was struck had received an evacuation order "just 15 minutes" ahead of the hit, which came from a Russian jet-propelled drone.
- The air force in Ukraine put the number of drones brought down at 405, along with four missiles.
- Germany said a week ago that responsibility for the August drone incident at the airport in Leipzig lay with Russia, an accusation Moscow rejected as "absurd".
The BBC reports a Russian drone striking a halted train close to where Ukraine meets Poland, and says warning to leave the carriages came roughly a quarter of an hour ahead of the hit. NPR and The Guardian report everyone aboard got off and nobody was injured. CNN reports damage a short distance from the same crossing, where a lorry was struck within a kilometre of it, and describes an earlier hit that day on fuel facilities in the border town, which closed the crossing for a while. Al Jazeera carries Warsaw's and Kyiv's shared charge that Moscow is escalating with these attacks so near the frontier.
Where the accounts part company is the position of the carriage holding Boris Johnson, Carl Bildt and David Petraeus when the drone came in. One version places it beyond the checkpoint only moments earlier; a competing version has it already over the line inside Poland. CNN and NPR both relay the operator of the line saying it looks probable the weapon was meant for the officials, whose service left ahead of its timetable. Petraeus, riding a different service at Yahodyn, describes the episode as terrifying, and The Guardian and NPR both carry Johnson's message on X mocking the logic of blasting a parked engine beside Poland.
On the surrounding picture the outlets converge. The Guardian reports Ukraine's air force bringing down 405 drones and four missiles overnight, and relays Moscow's defence ministry justifying continued attacks on western rail lines as attacks on a supply route for European arms. The BBC reports Donald Tusk convening ministers in Warsaw and telling them Russian activity is creeping toward Polish soil. What holds across every account: the strike itself, the evacuation, the lack of injuries, the damaged lorry and the fuel stop. What does not hold is the drone's intended mark and exactly where the officials were when it arrived.
Speaking to the New York Times, Petraeus said: "This is the act of a truly barbaric leader trying to terrorize Ukrainian civilians."
Still developing
The order in which the officials' train passed through the Yahodyn crossing is not clear, and the figures do not line up between the accounts.
How settled the reporting is
Sources
- BBC — Russian struck train near Poland border shortly after Boris Johnson and top European officials passed through - BBC
- CNN — Ex-CIA boss was at Ukrainian station when Russian drone struck train
- NPR — Russian drone hits train near Ukraine-Poland border soon after dignitaries passed through
- The Guardian — Train carrying Boris Johnson and ex-CIA chief may have been targeted in Russian strike, officials say
- Al Jazeera — Poland, Ukraine accuse Russia of ‘escalation’ after strikes near border - Al Jazeera
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