Russian drone strike kills two on Ukrainian passenger train

A Russian drone strike killed two railway crew members and injured a child on a passenger train in Ukraine's Odesa region on August 13, 2026, in what officials described as a deliberate attack on civilians. The incident occurred as Russia launched a large-scale overnight drone barrage across the country, with Ukrainian air defenses intercepting most of the incoming projectiles.

The attack targeted a locomotive on the Odesa-Dnipro route, which was carrying 340 passengers, including 67 children. According to Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, the head of Ukrainian Railways, a monitoring team detected an incoming drone and ordered the train to stop near a station so passengers could evacuate. However, the jet-powered Shahed drone made a sudden maneuver, leaving the crew insufficient time to escape after stopping the train. The driver and his assistant were killed in the strike, which completely burned out the locomotive's cab.

All 340 passengers were evacuated safely and transported to Odesa by bus. A second drone strike later hit another train carrying 500 passengers in the same region, injuring one child but causing no fatalities. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the drone operator...