It doesn’t really matter if they meant to do it or not.
The Russian drone attack that struck a train near the Ukraine-Poland border as a group of former Western officials left the country was a clear escalation by the Kremlin. Ukraine’s rail network said former CIA Director David Petraeus, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other senior officials who were nearby at local stations or on trains were likely targets.
Intent is difficult to prove in a dispute. To some extent, the evidence was an afterthought in the rubble, the damage was obvious by then, and the need for retribution was obvious. Killing the former CIA director on a railroad platform would have provided some element of deniability for Russia. How could they be sure he was there? But it would fulfill warnings from Western intelligence agencies that have been circulating for some time that Russia would seek some form of escalation with Ukraine’s NATO allies in the near future.
Full-scale military conflict with NATO seemed an unlikely goal for the Russian state, which is struggling to control and occupy its relatively small neighbor. Rather, lateral movement in a deniable hybrid space is more likely, with countries such as Ukraine warning that their borders with NATO countries could come under attack.
The direct impact of exposing Ukraine’s diplomatic communications network to attack is serious. The railway is the best means for heads of state and senior officials from Ukraine’s allies to travel to and from Kyiv to show vital support, share the most sensitive information and discuss important issues. Trains and the civilians aboard them are now routinely attacked by Russian drones. The latest version uses other Russian aerial drones to transmit signals and video feeds to pilots within Russia in real time. These “mesh” networks extend range and reduce the risk of disruption from electronic warfare. This surprising development helped Moscow attack trains very close to Poland.
The end result is that Western officials and their security personnel, whose job it is to minimize risk, are forced to either rethink how they enter and exit Ukraine or widen the range of acceptable risks. In a war-torn country where air travel is too dangerous to even consider, roads are the obvious option, but they are congested, unstable and cursed with long and torturous border lines. New ideas are needed to maintain the flow of high-profile visitors to Kyiv, at a time when expressions of support, genuine assistance and the right partnerships are essential. Without a fast and safe rail option, Western officials faced with travel times of around 10 hours or more each way are likely to reconsider whether remote video calls are simply better.
This is likely part of Russia’s goal, to deny Ukraine easy and free use of its border crossings and rail networks to move goods and important visitors, and to keep Western countries on edge. Moscow’s escalation has been evident for years, with sabotage incidents becoming more frequent and recklessness in the form of drones and ballistic missiles attempting to penetrate NATO’s outer defenses. None of this ongoing research is a coincidence. All of this fits into Russia’s gray zone conflict doctrine, in which escalation of conflict occurs gradually, in small steps, none of which, in and of itself, seems worth restarting the war.
However, the situation is increasingly bleak for NATO and, of course, for Ukraine. The Russian government has correctly calculated that NATO, with its growing rift between the Trump administration and Europe and its partial preoccupation with Iran, does not have the bandwidth or budget to properly clash with the Kremlin, which believes that somehow winning, or even preserving, this war is a matter of survival.
Similarly, Russian President Vladimir Putin lacks the resources to risk all-out war with NATO. But his military industrial base is slowly entering a new era of cheaper, longer-range, more accurate and more destructive drones and missiles. Russia’s new jet-powered drones, the Guerlain 4 and 5, can fly 1,000 kilometers at speeds of 600 kilometers (373 miles) per hour. Ukraine is struggling to stop them, and its engineers are working on the problem 24/7 as a matter of life and death. For NATO, these represent future fears that European member states hope will never come to them, given that military spending on the technology needed to defend them is, to put it politely, needlessly deferred.
Ukrainians are already facing a devastating winter due to intensified attacks on heating and food supplies. This is especially true given the inability of the West to supply more Patriot interceptors. For NATO, new struggles in the coming months will grapple with Russia’s expanding reach, audacity and tenacity in threatening its borders, former prime ministers on railways, and perhaps even border crossing points.
Warnings of escalation have intensified in recent months. Sunday’s rail attack marks a moment of realization for the ill-equipped Western alliance.
