A Russian drone strike on a Ukrainian passenger train in the Kharkiv region has killed five people, Ukrainian prosecutors said, in an attack President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced as terrorism and a direct blow to ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the war.
The strike occurred on Tuesday on a passenger service running from Chop, near Ukraine’s western borders with Hungary and Slovakia, to Barvinkove in eastern Ukraine. Prosecutors said fragments of five bodies were found at the scene near a village in the Kharkiv region.
According to prosecutors, one drone struck the train directly, while two additional drones hit an area alongside the track. Photographs shared online showed at least two carriages engulfed in flames beside a snow-covered rail bed.
Zelenskyy said the train was carrying more than 200 passengers, including 18 people in the carriage that was hit, though prosecutors had earlier put the number of passengers on board at 155. “In any country, a drone strike on a civilian train would be considered in exactly the same way – purely as terrorism. There is not and cannot be any military purpose in this,” Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
He said the attack undermined diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the conflict. “Every such Russian strike erodes the diplomacy that is still ongoing and undermines the efforts of partners who are helping to end this war,” he wrote, urging Ukraine’s allies to increase pressure on Moscow.
Keeping the trains moving
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba described the attack, which he said involved three drones, as a “direct act of Russian terror”.
Despite the strike, Ukraine’s national railway Ukrzaliznytsia said it would continue operating passenger services, with chief executive Oleksandr Pertsovskyi thanking rescue teams and fellow passengers who helped evacuate those on board.
“Keeping things moving is becoming more difficult,” Pertsovskyi wrote on Facebook. “We are regrouping. There will be additional strict security measures in some places, but even on those most frightening days, we cannot give up.”
The attack on the train came amid a broader wave of drone strikes across Ukraine. Regional officials said a barrage of more than 50 Russian drones hit the southern port city of Odesa, killing three people and wounding more than 30.
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