Russian drone strike kills train driver and assistant in Ukraine's Odesa region

A Russian drone strike on a passenger train in Ukraine's southern Odesa region killed the driver and his assistant, Ukrainian national railways announced Thursday. Oleksandr Pertsovsky, director of Ukrainian Railways, stated on social media that the crew had no chance of survival.

“

According to the initial information available, this strike left no chance for the crew of our locomotive - the driver and his assistant.

"This is a horrific daily act of terror and a targeted attack on civilians," Pertsovsky declared. The train was preparing to enter a station to evacuate passengers due to a drone threat. All 340 passengers and the onboard staff were safely evacuated and unharmed.

A video circulating on social media, unverified by AFP, shows the burning locomotive with a gaping hole. Pertsovsky indicated the strike was carried out by a "Shahed" drone, a jet-powered variant of an Iranian-designed unmanned aerial vehicle. Russia has recently increased its use of these drones, which are harder to intercept than the piston-engine models used extensively since 2022.

“

This is a horrific daily act of terror and a targeted attack on civilians.

This incident follows a similar Russian attack in late January on a passenger train in the northeastern Kharkiv region, which resulted in at least five deaths. At the time, the head of Ukrainian Railways accused Moscow of attempting to "cut off certain regions" from the rest of the country as strikes on railway infrastructure near the front lines intensified in eastern Ukraine.

“

The 340 passengers and the onboard staff were evacuated to a safe place. None of them were injured.