Russian Strike on Train Station Near Poland Seen as Warning to Kyiv’s Allies
The attack on Ukraine’s rail network, which connects the country to the West, was a jab at Europe, officials said.
“It is clearly meant to scare Western countries from supporting Ukraine, from going to Ukraine to show support,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, said on Monday. “The question for us is, ‘What do we take from that message?’”
A photograph released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine after a Russian drone strike at a rail station in Lutsk, near the border with Poland, on Saturday.State Emergency Service of Ukraine, via Reuters
Jeanna Smialek covers the European Union, and Lara Jakes covers NATO.
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Ukraine’s rail network is a link to the West. With airspace over the country closed, its trains crawl toward the border day and night, ferrying officials and dignitaries, along with ordinary people, to and from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. The railway is a lifeline, and a potent symbol of support.
European officials say that Russia’s weekend strike on a station near the Ukraine-Poland border, which hit perilously close to departing foreign visitors including the former C.I.A. director David Petraeus, was an attack not just on Ukrainian infrastructure, but on those ties.
It was not immediately clear whether Moscow intended to target any particular official. Attacks on railways are common, and the Russian Defense Ministry said that the military was taking aim at routes “used to transport military cargo,” according to the Russian news agency TASS.
But European leaders said the incident was part of an escalating Russian campaign to create confusion and to weaken the Western alliance at a particularly dangerous moment for Ukraine.
Governments and researchers have accused Russia in recent years of sabotage and hybrid attacks aimed at Ukraine’s allies. A drone containing an explosive device was found in the freight terminal of an airport in Leipzig, eastern Germany, last month, an incident that Berlin blamed on Moscow. Misinformation and election interference by Russia have become common. So has GPS jamming, which can disrupt communication and navigation.
The timing of the attack was notable. The drone strike hit a train close to one ridden by Mr. Petraeus and came shortly after the departure of another, carrying the former British prime minister Boris Johnson and other European politicians and diplomats.
The NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, said the strike showed “desperation” on the part of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. NATO would respond, Mr. Rutte said, by doubling down on support for Ukraine and with potential covert action.
Philip Bednarczyk, the Warsaw office director at the German Marshall Fund, a think tank, said that Russia’s attacks served to test “over and over again” whether NATO allies were committed to defending one another.
Mr. Bednarczyk pointed out that while incidents so far had been isolated, many in Poland were bracing for further escalation this winter, perhaps even into something coordinated. Mr. Bednarczyk said that he already knew friends who had begun to avoid taking the train into Kyiv from Warsaw, opting to drive instead.
“It’s an important artery,” he said of the rail link to Poland.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland said that Russia’s escalation was “becoming a reality” and that he would review plans to protect his country’s railways and industries.
He added that the most recent strikes showed that Russia was more willing than ever to deploy longer range, high-precision jet-powered drones to threaten NATO.
“We do not want to give in to nervousness — emotions are the last thing needed here,” Mr. Tusk said. “But there is no doubt that we, together with our allies, must be prepared for a joint response should the need arise.”
In Kyiv, the chief executive of Ukrzaliznytsia, the national rail service, said Ukraine did not have enough defenses to match the swarm of drones that crashed into targets with hundreds of pounds of explosives.
“I understand we cross so many red lines in this war, but how in the world can hitting a passenger train be even accepted as something that is not immediately seen as a war crime?” the chief executive, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, said in an interview. “A passenger train is not different from a passenger airplane, especially in the country that has no airspace open.”
Still, he said, Russia’s tactics had not deterred dignitaries, who continued to travel to Kyiv on Monday, including the speaker of Japan’s Parliament.
Russia’s latest strike came while European nations have been considering how they can best support Ukraine as the war becomes ever more costly and the fighting shows no sign of ending soon.
The European Union finalized a support package of 90 billion euros, about $100 billion, for Ukraine this year. But Kyiv’s financial needs are growing under a barrage of Russian attacks, reviving a conversation among European nations about how to continue the financial backing.
Some countries are again contemplating whether it might make sense to use Russian sovereign assets frozen in Europe to support Ukraine — an idea that was considered but ultimately rejected last year.
Petteri Orpo, the prime minister of Finland, said on Monday that the train station attack had been an attempt to break European unity, adding that Moscow was wrong to think such efforts would succeed.
“This is a very dangerous game they are playing now,” Mr. Orpo said.
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Anatol Magdziarz contributed reporting.
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
Lara Jakes, a Times reporter based in Rome, reports on conflict and diplomacy, with a focus on weapons and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. She has been a journalist for more than 30 years.
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Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine
A City Fears Obliteration: The frontline Ukrainian city of Izium still bears the scars of Russian occupation from four years ago. As Moscow’s forces approach, residents are bracing for the worst.
Driving Wedges Between Ukraine and Its Allies: Britain warned that Russia uses disinformation to divide Ukraine from its international partners, with the government suggesting that Russia accused Ukraine of planning a false-flag attack on Britain’s ambassador to Russia.
Russian Drone: An incursion by a Russian drone into Moldova’s airspace forced the authorities there to temporarily ground several flights, including one carrying President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the Moldovan government said.
Ukraine’s Budget Gap: An unexpected request from Zelensky for $27 billion offered a stark reminder that the cost of the war will rise, challenging Europe.
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