Former US CIA director David Petraeus was evacuated from a Ukrainian train to a nearby station when a Russian drone struck a stationary civilian train car on Sunday.
“For those who have not been under fire, this was terrifying,” Petraeus told The New York Times on Sunday.
“This is the act of a truly barbaric leader trying to terrorize Ukrainian civilians.”
Petraeus was at the station shortly after a diplomatic train carrying former UK prime minister Boris Johnson and several other dignitaries passed through.
Ex-CIA chief has close call in Ukraine after Russian drone hits train
Johnson was traveling on a train route frequently used by diplomatic officials when a Russian drone hit a passenger train in Poland. Petraeus was traveling separately and was on a regular Ukrainian civilian train that was next to the train car that was hit.
Petraeus, Johnson, and other European politicians were returning to Poland by train after attending the YES security conference in Kyiv when they were awoken at 5 a.m. and prepared to evacuate. Johnson and the European officials’ train left earlier than scheduled, leading Ukrainian officials to believe that they were targeted by the Kremlin.
If the strike was intended for Johnson and the other European officials, it would mark another significant escalation in the war on Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression to the West.
Ukraine’s rail operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, said that it was “entirely possible” that Russia intended to target the diplomatic train in a statement on Sunday.
"It is entirely possible that the Russian drone's intended target was the diplomatic train, which departed the station earlier than scheduled after train timetables were adjusted in real time because of the constant threat of Russian strikes,” the company said in a statement.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that it was targeting “railway infrastructure facilities in western Ukraine that are used to transport military cargoes from European countries,” according to a statement published by state news agency TASS.
However, Petraeus said that the train he was on solely carried civilians, and strongly discredited the Kremlin’s accounts. He was later able to reboard the train he was traveling on and reach Poland.
“There was no military justification for what Russia did in this case,” Petraeus told the NYT.
“This is just part of a campaign to exhaust the Ukrainian population, which is not going to work. They are truly unbreakable. They are tired. But they are unbreakable.”