A Russian drone strike on a passenger train in northeastern Ukraine killed five people on Tuesday, an attack that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned as pure terrorism and evidence of Moscow's growing capacity to terrorize civilians. The attack occurred near the village of Yazykove in the Barvinkove community of the Izium district in the Kharkiv region, where three Shahed-type drones struck a locomotive and passenger carriage, setting them ablaze. The train was traveling from Chop and Lviv in western Ukraine to Barvinkove, the closest railway station to the front lines some 70 kilometers away, and is frequently used by Ukrainians visiting soldiers stationed in the combat zone.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba confirmed that 291 passengers including children were aboard the train at the time of the attack, with 18 people in the carriage directly hit by one of the drones. Emergency workers arriving at the scene were confronted with devastating carnage, with victims' remains scattered among the burnt wreckage. The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office stated that the remains of five people had been recovered and that identification would only be possible through DNA testing. Two additional passengers sustained injuries while one person remained missing as search operations continued through Wednesday.
Zelenskyy responded to the attack with a forceful statement on his Telegram channel, declaring that in any country a drone strike on a civilian train would be viewed exclusively as terrorism and that there is no military justification for killing civilians in a train carriage. The Ukrainian president noted that Russia has significantly increased its capacity to kill and terrorize, calling on the international community to apply more pressure on Moscow. Deputy Prime Minister Kuleba described the strike by three drones as a direct act of Russian terror. While Russia has repeatedly targeted Ukraine's railway infrastructure throughout the nearly four-year conflict, a direct strike on a passenger train carrying civilians is highly unusual.
The train attack came amid a broader wave of Russian aerial assaults across Ukraine overnight. More than 50 drones hammered the southern port city of Odesa, killing three people including one man whose body was found under building rubble, and wounding at least 25 others including two children and a pregnant woman. Dozens of residential buildings, a church, a kindergarten, and a high school sustained damage in Odesa, while a professional construction lyceum was destroyed for the second time by enemy drones. Ukraine's air force reported that Russian forces launched 165 drones overnight, with Ukrainian air defenses neutralizing 135 of them before they reached their targets.
The attacks also targeted critical energy infrastructure as Ukraine endures one of its coldest winters in years. Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov announced that Russian strikes cut electricity supplies to approximately 80 percent of Kharkiv city and surrounding areas, leaving hundreds of thousands without heating during subzero temperatures. The systematic targeting of power facilities has been a hallmark of Russia's winter campaign, designed to pressure Kyiv into accepting unfavorable terms in ongoing peace negotiations. Ukraine's Defense Ministry noted that Russia has deployed new jet-powered Geran-5 drones capable of carrying 90-kilogram warheads with a range of nearly 1,000 kilometers.
The deadly attacks occurred just days after Russia, Ukraine, and the United States concluded their first trilateral peace talks since the war began, held in Abu Dhabi on January 23. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described those discussions as constructive but emphasized that Russia's insistence on Ukraine yielding all of Donbas, including the 20 percent of Donetsk still under Ukrainian control, remains a very important condition. Zelenskyy announced that a document outlining U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine in a postwar scenario is fully prepared and awaiting formal signature. All parties are expected to return to the United Arab Emirates for another round of negotiations as early as February 1.
International observers noted that the timing of the civilian train attack, coming so close to diplomatic efforts, sends a stark message about Moscow's approach to negotiations. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha condemned the overnight barrage on Odesa as brutal, while Western officials expressed concern that escalating attacks on civilian targets could undermine the fragile momentum toward peace talks. The prosecution of those responsible for the train strike has been opened under Ukraine's criminal code provisions covering violations of the laws and customs of war combined with premeditated murder.
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