Former CIA Director David Petraeus was still at Ukraine’s Yahodyn station when a Russian drone struck a locomotive near the Polish border after a diplomatic train left early.
The Ukraine war reached the Polish border with a former CIA director still on the platform.
A Russian drone struck a train at Yahodyn station on Sept. 13, near the Dorohusk crossing into Poland. Former CIA Director David Petraeus was aboard a separate train at the station when the drone hit, according to Ukrainian state rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia and Associated Press reporting.
The strike followed a Kyiv security conference that brought the same familiar foreign-policy class into Ukraine: Petraeus, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, and security advisers from several European states.
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A diplomatic train carrying Johnson, Bildt, and the advisers had left Yahodyn early. Ukrzaliznytsia said it was “highly probable” the Russian drone had intended to hit that train.
Petraeus’s train remained at the station. No casualties were reported, but rail passengers evacuated before the strike destroyed the locomotive.
The station lies on the Kyiv-Warsaw route, near the Ukraine-Poland frontier. A drone also hit a truck less than a mile from Polish territory, temporarily closing the crossing.
The Guardian reported that Russian officials called the western Ukrainian rail network a route for European military cargo. The diplomatic delegation’s escape and Petraeus’s presence show how close Washington’s former intelligence leadership and Europe’s Ukraine operation now sit to the war’s front-line consequences.