What is the story about?
Poland and Ukraine have condemned a Russian strike near the Polish border as an escalation in the war, after a Kyiv-Warsaw passenger train was hit around
2 kilometres from Polish territory. The incident has raised fresh security concerns in Warsaw, with Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski saying the strike was only a few hundred metres from the Polish border. “This was just a few hundred metres from the Polish border, this affects the safety of my countrymen,” Sikorski said in Kyiv, calling for allies to “double” their support for Ukraine.
Poland Warns Of Wider Escalation
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk chaired an emergency meeting in Warsaw following the strikes. Tusk said he expected Russia to escalate the war “in the coming weeks” and warned that Polish territory could not be ruled out as being affected.
“We cannot exclude that the escalation will also affect our territory … I hope not,” Tusk said. The remarks underline Warsaw's concern that intensified Russian attacks could increasingly approach NATO territory.
Train Hit Near Polish Border
Poland and Ukraine said the Kyiv-Warsaw passenger train was struck approximately 2 kilometres from the Polish border. No casualties were reported in the attack.
The Ukrainian rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia said a diplomatic train carrying Johnson and security advisers from several EU member states was at Yagodyn station shortly before the attack. Former CIA director David Petraeus was also aboard another train at the station when the strike occurred, although the rail operator did not specify how far the officials were from the train that was hit.
Johnson, Petraeus Presence Raises Questions
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow had “deliberately” struck the locomotive. Ukrainian Railways said Johnson and Petraeus may have been the intended targets, although that claim has not been independently established in the supplied information.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the incident as “Putin’s terror knocking directly on the doors of the EU and Nato”. The reported location of the strike, so close to Poland, has added to concerns in Warsaw over the potential for the conflict to spill closer to NATO territory.
Trump Urges Zelenskyy To Halt Refinery Strikes
Separately, US President Donald Trump has called on Zelenskyy to stop Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure involved in producing and distributing diesel.
“Mr Zelenskyy has to do one thing – he has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia,” Trump told reporters in Ireland, arguing that the attacks were contributing to global fuel shortages. Kyiv has defended attacks on Russia's oil industry, saying the sector helps fund and sustain Moscow's war effort.
Trump also linked rising oil prices to the Russia-Ukraine conflict rather than the US conflict with Iran. The International Energy Agency has separately said disruptions to Russia's refining system and a near-halt in product exports following intensified Ukrainian attacks had compounded wider losses in global fuel supplies.
