Russian drone hits train near Poland border, hours after Boris Johnson's Kyiv train passed through

A Russian drone struck a train in western Ukraine shortly after former British prime minister Boris Johnson and several European national security officials had travelled along the same railway line on their way back from a conference in Kyiv. No casualties were reported, Ukrainian authorities said.

The drone hit the train's engine at Yahodyn, a rail crossing point opposite Poland's Dorohusk station. All passengers had been evacuated before the strike, according to Ukraine's state railway company, Ukrzaliznytsia. Ukrainian and Polish authorities said the drone struck about 2km (1.2 miles) from the Polish border.

Russia's defence ministry said it had struck railway infrastructure in western Ukraine. Ukrzaliznytsia said it was "quite possibly" the case that "the target of this drone could have been the diplomatic train". The competing claims could not be independently verified.

Johnson, along with European national security advisers including the UK's Jonathan Powell, had passed through the same line on a different train after attending a conference in Kyiv.

Former CIA director David Petraeus, who was on board another train at Yahodyn station at the time of the strike, told the New York Times that the incident was "terrifying". He described the attack as the work of a leader he said was seeking to frighten Ukrainian civilians.

Ukrzaliznytsia said the train had left the station earlier than expected because of a timetable change forced by "constant threats of Russian strikes". It said an evacuation order for passengers on the train that was hit had been issued "just 15 minutes" before the strike by a Russian jet-propelled drone.

Former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt, who also attended the Kyiv conference, told the BBC that passengers on his train had been told to prepare for evacuation after it stopped, and were later allowed to continue their journey.

"On the train I was on we received order to prepare evacuation after it had stopped. But after a number of minutes we were informed that it was clear and we could proceed," he said. That train arrived safely at Poland's border station in Dorohusk.

Some reports have suggested Bildt was on the same train as Johnson, but the former UK prime minister has not confirmed any details of his travel.

Writing on X, Johnson said he did not know what "warped logic" had driven Russian President Vladimir Putin to destroy a stationary Ukrainian locomotive on the Polish border. He described it as the kind of "random and senseless" attack Ukrainians endure every day, "even on civilian railways", and urged Kyiv's allies to urgently provide Ukrainians with "the air defences they need".

Ukraine has made repeated appeals to its allies, particularly the United States, to supply more interceptor missiles to defend against daily Russian attacks, which increasingly involve fast-moving ballistic missiles and jet-propelled drones.

Rail links remain a vital route for officials, aid workers and civilians travelling to and from Ukraine, and strikes so close to Poland's border have drawn attention to the risk of the war affecting neighbouring NATO territory. Poland, a NATO member, has previously scrambled aircraft to protect its airspace during large-scale Russian strikes on western Ukraine.