As has now been reported across the major world media outlets, on the morning of 14 September, a Russian drone struck the locomotive of a train traveling out of Ukraine while located less than a mile from the Polish border.
The locomotive that was hit was also moving right behind a special VIP train that had just crossed the border.
We now know that these first special trains did not operate on a fixed timetable.
Due to the type of people in its passenger carriages, the exact movements of trains of this kind are not public, and timetables are kept close-held for the security of those on board.
This particular VIP train was carrying former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt, the current UK National Security Advisor, and other senior European officials.
One interpretation at present is that the Russian military had originally intended to hit the carriage with the VIPs on board.
They did not realize that this train had left ahead of schedule and was already in Poland, so the drone mistakenly struck the second train.
Moscow was intending to create maximum mayhem and take out some strong critics of Moscow in the process.
Those traveling from Ukraine to Poland on this occasion had been attending the Yalta European Strategy (YES) summit, every year in Ukraine since 2004.
The event is organized and financed by Viktor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, and has been one of the leading forums advocating the country’s complete separation from Russia and integration with Europe.
They Want to Isolate Ukraine
But not all the notable personalities on that first train managed to dodge the drone.
Lancet Drone. Image Credit: Russian State Media.
“All of a sudden, you heard it coming down, and there was a very loud explosion closer to the front end of our train,” said Glenn Corn.
He is a retired CIA senior executive who was traveling on the second train with US retired Gen. David Petraeus, a former CIA Director.
One Russian drone came dangerously close to this civilian train that was carrying these former senior US intelligence officials and struck a petrol station near the Yahodyn-Dorohusk border crossing with Poland in Ukraine – only 1.2 miles from Polish soil.
“It was very large, close to the train… You could see the impact; there was a large explosion cloud,” Corn later told the London Daily Telegraph.
Those also on board described how, as the second train slowly approached Poland’s border, attendants began running between compartments, screaming at passengers to evacuate.
Passengers then reportedly spilled onto the platform and scattered looking for cover, with the sound of anti-aircraft fire and a drone flying overhead in the background.
The former CIA head later told the New York Times that “For those who have not been under fire, this was terrifying,” he said, and called the attack a senseless act of terror against civilian infrastructure.
Corn’s interpretation was that he did not believe that Russia was targeting either the train carrying him and Petraeus – or even the previous train with the European dignitaries. “I think they wanted to send a message,” he told the Telegraph. “Part of that message is that you shouldn’t travel to Ukraine; it’s not safe.
They [Moscow] are trying to isolate the Ukrainians.”
What You Do When You Are Stymied on the Battlefield
Russia’s battlefield advances have now become virtually non-existent.
Ukraine has recently erased all of Moscow’s territorial gains with its own counterattacks.
Putin’s generals steadfastly refuse to convey these details to him in their misleading daily reports, and they are instead ramping up long-range aerial attacks on civilian infrastructure so as to paralyze Ukraine.
Russia famously failed to capture Kyiv in 2022 after its initial invasion. But the city still stands, functions, and continues on as Ukraine’s capital.
So, Russia is now trying to completely disrupt the city and essentially turn it “off” by using these drone attacks “to control how the city sleeps, travels, and works,” said a recent report in the Kyiv Post.
But this Russian strategy carries potentially catastrophic consequences if even a slight miscalculation occurs.
In his statements to the Telegraph, Corn emphasized that this drone attack was a “high-risk operation”, which could easily have gone the wrong way by either killing some of these high-profile dignitaries or an even larger number of civilians.
He sees this attack as Moscow taking increasingly risky steps by pushing closer to NATO’s borders.
“They’re playing with fire… Putin is definitely raising the stakes; he’s getting closer and closer to the Polish border with these strikes. I think he is escalating,” said Corn.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Korea Fellow at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.