Boris Johnson and Carl Bildt narrowly escape Russian drone strike near Polish border

Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt came within minutes of a Russian drone strike on September 13, 2026, as their chartered train crossed from Ukraine into Poland in the early morning hours.

The two had been returning from the Yalta European Strategy security conference in Kyiv when, at around 5 a.m. local time, their train received an evacuation warning due to Russian drone activity near the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing with Poland. Their train was cleared to continue after no further threat was detected. Minutes later, a drone struck the locomotive of a regular Kyiv-Warsaw passenger train carrying 206 travelers, roughly 2 kilometers from Polish soil.

What happened at the border

Ukrainian rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia confirmed that all passengers on the struck train were safely evacuated, with no injuries reported. The drone hit the locomotive, not the passenger carriages, a detail that likely prevented casualties on a fully loaded cross-border service.

Johnson took to social media afterward, calling the attack “random and senseless.” Bildt pointed to a broader pattern: the ongoing intensification of Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure.

A deliberate pattern of targeting rail infrastructure

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy characterized the strike as a deliberate attack on civilian infrastructure, not a stray munition or a battlefield accident.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded sharply, warning about potential escalation given the strike’s proximity to NATO borders. In November 2022, a missile landed in the Polish village of Przewodow, killing two people. That incident was ultimately attributed to a stray Ukrainian air defense missile, but it triggered hours of emergency consultations among NATO allies.

According to Ukrzaliznytsia, over 1,700 railway staff have lost their lives due to the conflict, underscoring the sustained targeting of Ukraine’s rail network since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

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