Russia struck train near Poland border shortly after Boris Johnson and top European officials passed through

A Russian strike struck a train near the Ukraine-Poland border after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other high-ranking European officials had traveled through the same route. The attack did not result in any casualties, as the train's engine was the target. Johnson and several of Europe's top security advisers, including the UK's Jonathan Powell, had been on the same line during their return journey from a conference in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.

Russia claimed responsibility for striking railway infrastructure in western Ukraine, but Boris Johnson expressed disbelief over the "warped logic" that led to the explosion of a stationary Ukrainian locomotive on the Polish border. Poland's Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, reported that a Russian drone had hit a point 800 meters from the Polish border.

Russia has been responsible for several deadly attacks in recent months, targeting Ukraine's trains, railway depots, and other transport facilities. In early February, six employees of the state railway company Ukrzaliznytsia were killed when a depot in Kyiv was hit. This week, a female conductor lost her life in a Russian drone attack on a passenger train in southern Ukraine.

In January, President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the Russian strike on a passenger train in the northeastern Kharkiv region, which left five people dead. The Russian attacks have severely damaged Ukraine's extensive train network, the primary mode of transportation for millions of Ukrainians, as air travel has been suspended since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.