Russian drone strikes train near Polish border as tensions escalate

Ukraine’s foreign minister warned on Sunday that Vladimir Putin was “knocking on Nato’s door” after a Russian drone struck a passenger train just two kilometres from the Polish border.

A drone hit the engine carriage of a train near the Yahodyn crossing point earlier on Sunday. The vehicle had already been evacuated after Ukraine learned of the incoming strike, and nobody was injured.

“Russia’s barbaric strikes at the Ukraine-Poland border in Yahodyn are not just a continuation of its attacks on our state borders,” foreign minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on social media.

“This is Putin’s terror “knocking” directly on the doors of the EU and NATO. Russian barbarians are at your gate, dear partners.”

The strike occurred as Russia launched its biggest drone barrage on Ukraine in months. Ukraine’s air force tallied 450 drones launched overnight, including jet-propelled drones and Banderol missile drones.

Asked about the war during his visit to Ireland, however, US president Donald Trump only urged Ukraine to stop hitting Russian diesel refineries, which is contributing to higher prices for American farmers.

Ukraine’s foreign minister on Sunday warned that Vladimir Putin was “knocking directly on the doors of the EU and Nato” after a train was struck near the border with Poland.

“Russia’s barbaric strikes at the Ukraine-Poland border in Yahodyn are not just a continuation of its attacks on our state borders,” Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.

“This is Putin’s terror “knocking” directly on the doors of the EU and NATO. Russian barbarians are at your gate, dear partners.”

He added: “Act now: throw the full weight of your sanctions at Putin’s aggressive regime. Make Moscow feel the consequences of its terror. Not just half-decisions, but uncompromising, powerful steps. Full trade embargo. Full entry bans. Full sanctions on the military-industrial complex.”

Boris Johnson was not on a train hit by a Russian drone near the Polish border returning from Ukraine.

Early reports had suggested that the former prime minister had been on the train with officials working for German chancellor Friedrich Merz and other EU leaders.

However, a spokeswoman who was with him has confirmed that Mr Johnson was on a different train and did not need to be evacuated.

It is understood that the former PM is planning to put out a statement once it is clear what happened to a different train on the track.

The drone attack is one of the most serious against EU leaders by Russia but it is not clear yet whether it was an accident or intentional.

A Russian drone on Sunday struck a train near a Polish border crossing with Ukraine that had earlier been used by visiting politicians.

The drone hit the engine carriage of the train, which had already been evacuated from the rest of the train after Ukraine learned of the incoming strike. Nobody was injured.

The aerial drone came down just two kilometres from the Polish border, near the Yahodyn crossing point.

The line had earlier been used by politicians coming back from a summit in Kyiv, including former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt.

"For the second day in a row, the enemy has been attacking the railways. Today in the Volyn region, two km from the border with Poland, the enemy struck the locomotive of a passenger train," rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia said on Telegram.

Speaking to reporters in Ireland, Donald Trump says that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy “has to do one thing”.

“He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets but not diesel fuel, because he’s causing a shortage of diesel.

“This isn’t done by the Middle East. This is what’s done by what’s happening with Russia and Ukraine. So we spoke to Mr Zelenskyy about it. There are plenty of other targets. Don’t hit diesel fuel because that’s hurting the world.”

American farmers harvesting two of the country's most vital crops - corn and soybeans - are confronting unprecedented diesel costs to operate their tractors, combines, and heavy machinery.

Global fuel supply disruptions linked to the ongoing six-month war with Iran and Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries drove US diesel to a record average of $5.85 per gallon on September 4.

Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has ballooned its attacks on different frontiers, away from the war zone.

"Basically, the Russians have expanded the war away from the front, where they have no success, into the economy, and their tactics are as basic as it gets: destroying every site that could help people cope with the conditions of war," he wrote on Telegram.

"Russia wants to kill the Ukrainian economy and break our resistance," Zelensky added.

Russia and Japan are at odds again, this time over a 50-ft granite statue that shows a Soviet soldier using the butt of his rifle to shatter a border post engraved with the Japanese chrysanthemum emblem.

Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, demanded that Russia remove the statue.

She said it was “unacceptable to erect a monument depicting the destruction” of the Chrysanthemum Crest, which is widely recognised as a symbol of Japan and the emblem of the Japanese imperial family.

Russia has strongly rejected the demand, framing the monument as legitimate historical memory of the Soviet Union’s 1945 victory over Japan and the end of the Second World War.

Russian strikes killed nine people, injured dozens, and damaged residential buildings and infrastructure across Ukraine on Saturday.

Three people were killed in the frontline region of Kramatorsk after Russian forces struck a private car and four were left injured, local officials said.

Two people were killed and 11 injured in Zaporizhzhia, and two killed in Kryvyi Rih. Authorities in Ukraine’s Kramatorsk region also reported fatalities.

The Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region reported that three people were killed in Ukrainian attacks.

Lithuania said that a perceived drone sighting in its airspace today that saw Vilnius airport closed and prompted Nato to summon a fighter jet turned out to be a flock of birds.

The air alert was lifted and the airport reopened within 38 minutes, after the Nato jet made a visual identification, Lithuania's National Crisis Management Centre said.

"On initial radar readings, marks left by birds and drones can be similar," it added in a statement.

Ukraine is bracing for a brutal winter as intensified Russian attacks on the country's infrastructure and key export industries compound a deepening budget crisis, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.

Economy Minister Oleksandr Kravchenko said that damage to infrastructure and fixed assets from Russian air strikes was estimated at close to $10 billion this year, while the broader economic costs of the attacks and the de facto blockage of its ports were seen at about 1.5 percentage points of gross domestic product.

"We anticipate a very difficult winter in terms of both critical infrastructure, which is being destroyed every day by Russian attacks, but also in terms of overall economic conditions in the country," Kravchenko said.

"This all comes when the budget and the fiscal space are very constrained," he told investors, officials and diplomats at a YES conference in Kyiv.