European Anger After Russia Targets the Train
Western countries supporting Kyiv interpreted the message sent by Russia following an attack targeting a train on the border between Ukraine and Poland.
Senior Western officials had passed near the site where the train was targeted shortly before the drone exploded. Russia also targeted a truck at the border, causing a border crossing with Poland to be closed.
On Monday, Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said that Sunday’s Russian drone attack on a train at the Ukrainian-Polish border, with Poland being a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), was intended to intimidate Western countries supporting Kyiv.
“I think we should act in the opposite way. We have to show that we stand with Ukraine and that we are not afraid,” she told reporters in Rovaniemi, Finland, where she was attending a summit on the Arctic.
Meanwhile, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said during a meeting of the crisis management team following the attack: “Escalation from the Russian side has become a reality, and examples of it are getting closer to our borders than ever before.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, for his part, commented on the attack by saying: “Putin is escalating.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that it had carried out strikes against railway infrastructure in western Ukraine, saying that it had targeted facilities used to transport military shipments arriving from European countries.
The Russian statement made no mention of an attack targeting a passenger train or diplomats.
Fears of additional airstrikes led to the temporary suspension of operations at two border crossings on the Polish side and the evacuation of hundreds of people, before operations resumed and cross-border traffic returned to normal.
Ukrainian Railways said that another train carrying diplomats and security advisers from several European Union countries, as well as former European political figures, had left Yahodyn station shortly before the attack.
It added that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was among the passengers, raising the possibility that the diplomats’ train had been the intended target of the attack, although it provided no evidence to confirm this.
The company explained that the train had departed the station ahead of its scheduled time as part of ongoing adjustments to train timetables due to the risk of Russian attacks.
Johnson said the attack represented another example of the nature of Russian operations in Ukraine, but he did not confirm reports that he had been aboard a train near the site of the strike.
