Five people were killed when a Russian drone struck a passenger train in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, prosecutors said. The attack occurred near a village while the service was travelling from Chop, close to Ukraine's borders with Hungary and Slovakia, to Barvinkove.
Investigators reported finding fragments from five bodies at the scene. Images published online showed at least two rail carriages burning beside snow-covered tracks. According to prosecutors, three drones were involved: one hit the train itself, while two landed in the adjacent area. The supplied report did not identify the victims or provide the precise location beyond the Kharkiv region.
Ukrainian accounts differed on how many people were aboard. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put the total aboard above 200 and said 18 had occupied the damaged carriage. Prosecutors had earlier put the onboard total at 155. The evidence did not explain the discrepancy, so both figures remained provisional rather than a single confirmed count.
Zelenskyy called the attack terrorism and said a civilian rail service had no military purpose. He argued that the strike damaged ongoing diplomacy and asked Ukraine's partners to increase pressure on Moscow. Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba likewise characterized the three-drone operation as a deliberate Russian attack on civilians. No Russian response was included in the supplied account.
Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, head of the national railway Ukrzaliznytsia, thanked rescuers and passengers who helped people leave the train. He said the operator would introduce tighter security in some locations while continuing to run services. Ukraine's rail network has remained essential for domestic travel and evacuation during the war, and the commitment underscored the effort to preserve civilian transport despite direct danger.
The train attack came during wider Russian aerial operations. More than 50 drones targeted Ukraine, and officials in the southern city of Odesa reported three deaths and over 30 injuries. Among those wounded there were two girls and a woman who was 39 weeks pregnant, according to regional governor Oleh Kiper. Odesa, a Black Sea port important to Ukrainian exports, had repeatedly been attacked since Russia's full-scale invasion almost four years earlier.
The Kharkiv strike's immediate confirmed toll was five dead. Although officials offered different passenger counts, their accounts agreed that a drone directly hit a civilian train and that additional aircraft struck nearby. The event added pressure to peace efforts that Ukrainian leaders said were already fragile, while railway officials focused on rescue, security and keeping the transport system operating.
For civilians, the attack demonstrated that ordinary intercity movement remained exposed to long-range weapons far from the static front. It also forced transport authorities to balance immediate protection measures against the need to preserve national mobility.
