RUSSIA ATTACKS UKRAINIAN PASSENGER TRAIN THREE TIMES DAYS AFTER STRIKE NEAR POLISH BORDER

KYIV, UKRAINE — Russia has carried out another attack on a Ukrainian passenger train, extending a series of strikes against the country’s railway system only days after a drone hit a train near the Polish border.

The latest incident involved Train No. 122 travelling from Kyiv to Mykolaiv on Wednesday, September 16.

According to Ukrainian officials, an early warning allowed all 168 passengers and crew members to leave the train before it was hit. No one aboard was injured.

Heorhii Reshetilov, acting governor of the Mykolaiv region, said the train came under two additional attacks following the initial strike, bringing the total to three.

Ukraine’s state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia said its monitoring team detected the danger early enough to evacuate the passengers, locomotive crew and other railway personnel.

Authorities subsequently arranged buses to complete the passengers’ journeys.

ATTACK FOLLOWS STRIKE NEAR POLAND

The latest incident occurred three days after a Russian drone struck the locomotive of a passenger train near Yahodyn in Ukraine’s Volyn region, approximately two kilometres from the Polish border.

That train was operating on the Kyiv to Warsaw route.

The September 13 attack gained wider international attention because a diplomatic train carrying former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt and other European officials had passed through Yahodyn shortly beforehand.

Ukraine’s railway operator said the diplomatic train may have been the intended target. That assessment has not been independently established.

Former CIA Director David Petraeus was aboard another train at the station during the incident.

A separate Russian drone also struck a truck near the Yahodyn Dorohusk border crossing, prompting Poland to subsequently reinforce security infrastructure at several crossings along its frontier with Ukraine.

RUSSIA INTENSIFIES ATTACKS ON UKRAINIAN RAILWAYS

The latest attack comes amid a significant increase in strikes against Ukraine’s railway system.

Ukrzaliznytsia told Reuters that Russia has attacked approximately 1,700 railway facilities since the beginning of 2026.

The railway operator said 120 passenger carriages, 304 locomotives and 43 railway stations have been hit this year.

That compares with 1,206 railway facilities attacked in 2025 and 842 in 2024.

Ukraine’s rail network has become particularly important during the war because the country’s airspace has remained closed to regular commercial aviation since Russia’s full scale invasion began in 2022.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Russia of systematically attacking railway infrastructure essential to civilians, evacuations and the country’s economy.

Russia and Ukraine have both intensified attacks on logistics and economic infrastructure in recent months as each side attempts to disrupt the other’s war effort.

Both countries deny deliberately targeting civilians.

FIVE KILLED IN SEPARATE BUS ATTACK

The railway strike was part of wider Russian drone attacks in southern Ukraine on Wednesday.

Ukrainian authorities said a Russian drone struck a passenger bus near the frontline city of Nikopol.

Police said four men and one woman were killed. Seven other people were injured.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attacks and called on the United States and European governments to increase pressure on Russia through tougher sanctions.

There was no immediate Russian comment on the incidents.

The latest train attack did not take place near Poland and there has been no indication that it involved an incursion into NATO airspace.

However, the repeated strikes against passenger trains and railway infrastructure come as Poland and other NATO members remain increasingly concerned about Russian military activity close to the alliance’s eastern frontier.