Russian drone destroys the locomotive of a train carrying 340 passengers

A Russian drone struck and destroyed the locomotive of a passenger train in the Odessa region. There were 340 people on board. The driver and his assistant were killed. The news was given by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a message posted on X.

"Today, in the Odessa region, the Russians once again destroyed the locomotive of an ordinary passenger train with a jet drone. There were 340 people on the train. And whoever was piloting that drone could hardly have been unaware that the target was entirely civilian. At the moment, unfortunately, we know that the driver and his assistant were killed in the attack," the president wrote.

The impact occurred a short distance from the carriages carrying passengers. According to local media, the locomotive was hit as it approached a station to let passengers off, after an alert about drones operating in the area. This is not the first incident of its kind against Ukrainian rail infrastructure.

The call for air defence

Zelensky linked the attack to the need to strengthen protection of the skies. "Every day the Russians strike at the lives of ordinary people for the sole purpose of spreading terror. And unfortunately, not all of these attacks receive a strong response from the international community. If the world really wants to stop this war in Europe, greater support for air defence and greater pressure on Russia are needed," he added.

The rail network is one of the things keeping the country running in wartime. It carries civilian traffic, evacuates people from combat zones and moves goods across a territory where air traffic is closed. Attacks on locomotives, stations and power lines therefore have an effect that goes beyond the immediate physical damage.

The Odessa case involves a train that was already responding to an alert, which makes it harder to read the incident as a targeting error. Russian accounts of the events were not reported. As with many episodes in this conflict, independent verification on the ground is not possible in the short term.