Why Russia Is Striking Ukrainian Trains: The Yahodyn Strike and the Railway Geography of the War

Yahodyn is a Ukrainian station located less than 5 km from Poland. Footage was filmed there the day before the program, around 10 a.m. It shows passengers being evacuated from a train after an alert. Moments later, the locomotive is hit by a Russian drone. All 206 passengers escaped unharmed. In the same area, a gas station was also hit, just 800 meters from the Polish border.

The program emphasizes one detail of the timing. A few minutes before the strike, another train had left the same station, a few minutes ahead of schedule. It was a special diplomatic train. Its passengers included Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister of Sweden. Many figures from the European Union, NATO and even the CIA had spent the weekend in Kyiv for an international conference.

For many experts, according to the program, the choice of weapon is telling. The Kremlin struck the locomotive with a drone rather than the entire train with a missile. The aim would have been to terrorize while limiting the death toll, in order to deter Europeans from continuing to travel to Ukraine. The program presents this reading as that of the experts. It does not present it as Moscow's established intention.

To explain the importance of this station, the program shows a map of the 23 international airports Ukraine had before the war. Since February 2022, the country's airspace has been completely closed. To enter or leave Ukraine, one must therefore take a bus or a train.

The most commonly used route involves several stages:

1. A flight to an international airport in Poland, such as Warsaw, Kraków or Lublin.
2. A train to Chełm (Kholm), in Poland. There is a technical stop there, because the track gauge differs between the Ukrainian and European networks. Passengers change trains and board a Ukrainian train.
3. A stop in Dorohusk, on the Polish side, for European checks.
4. A stop in Yahodyn, on the Ukrainian side, for formalities with the Ukrainian authorities.
5. The journey to Kyiv, a trip of 8 to 10 hours.

Yahodyn is therefore an unavoidable crossing point on the main route between the European Union and the Ukrainian capital. This is what gives the strike its symbolic weight.

The program cites a second strategic rail hub: Chop station. It is located in western Ukraine, in Transcarpathia, where the Ukrainian, Hungarian and Slovak borders meet. A night train runs directly from Budapest to Kyiv in about twenty hours.

According to the program, this is not the first time Putin's Russia has been suspected of targeting rail links between Poland and Ukraine. In November 2025, an explosive device was planted on the strategic Warsaw–Lublin line, near the village of Mika. The explosion destroyed part of the tracks without causing any casualties.

The program ends with the national railway company, Ukrzaliznytsia, highlighting its "astonishing agility." The company constantly adjusts its timetables in response to alerts, keeps delays to a minimum and repairs the network very quickly after destruction. The rail network is nicknamed Ukraine's "second army" because of its vital role in delivering military aid, in the economy and in maintaining human and diplomatic ties. It is this role, according to the program, that makes it a target today.