Sanna Marin has made the journey to Kyiv and back many times since February 2022, in winter, summer, and autumn. Speaking at the Book 2.0 conference in Lisbon on Wednesday, days after returning from the September 2026 Yalta European Strategy conference, the former Finnish prime minister said this trip stood apart.

"This was the first time that I noticed so many drone alarms," she said. "I think there was only one missile alarm at that time we visited previously. Now in Kyiv, in this international meeting, I have never seen so many alarms going off when there's an international meeting, also with the US quite heavily represented there on site."

The knock at 5 a.m.

Marin was traveling back to Poland by train when the drone threat reached her carriage. "There was a knock on the door at 5 a.m. saying that we need to evacuate the train," she said. "I quickly put on my clothes and then saw what was happening. But then for some reason we were able to continue, so we never evacuated."

Another train on the same route was less fortunate. "Another train that was also traveling to Poland was evacuated several times, and it was also hit by a drone, and there was a missile that landed quite near as well."

That strike, on 13 September, hit the locomotive of a passenger train near the Polish border, at the Yahodyn crossing in Volyn Oblast. Ukraine's state railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, said the Russian drone may have been aimed at a diplomatic train carrying security advisers from several EU states and former European leaders, including former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, which had left the station earlier than scheduled as staff adjusted movements in real time. Former CIA director David Petraeus was on another train at the crossing during the attack.

Marin was careful not to assert what Russia intended. "I don't know what are the motives behind this. Was it just an accident where they're trying to hit a gas station, or whatever? So I don't know about the motives." A gas station near the Yahodyn crossing was indeed struck the same night, setting off a large fire.

Russia strikes passenger train near Polish border as drone swarms reach deeper into western Ukraine

A warning to Europe

What Marin could say was that the restraint she had seen on earlier visits was gone. "I think it is alarming that there isn't that kind of restraint any more from attacking when there are international people in Kyiv."

She read it as a message aimed at everyone who backs Ukraine, and framed her Lisbon remarks as a warning to Europe. "I think Putin is trying to send a signal that if you support Ukraine, we will bomb you. It's about creating fear. We shouldn't reply to that with fear but with determination."

Russia has made Ukraine's railways a deliberate target. It struck the network around 1,200 times in 2025, more than the previous two years combined, shifting its aim from track and stations to the rolling stock itself, and about 40 railway workers have been killed since 2022, according to Ukrzaliznytsia. Strikes on trains have averaged about six a day since early March.

Why the west is suddenly in range

Western regions were long considered safer because of their distance from the front. Two changes have brought them within reach, and what Marin noticed on this trip is the product of both.

The first is control range. Russia's drones are steered in real time only within a "red zone" near the border and the front, and until recently that zone did not reach the west. Russia extended it by building signal repeaters on towers and rooftops in Belarus, boosting Shahed control signals far enough to reach Kyiv, Rivne, and Volyn.

Ukrainian hackers exposed the network in February 2026, and by June President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was giving Belarus's Aliaksandr Lukashenka one week to strip the repeaters from its border towers, warning that if Belarus did not, Ukraine would. Russia has also used signal-relay balloons drifting from Belarus to keep its drones connected.

The second is speed. Ukrainian interceptor drones had learned to bring down about half of the incoming Shaheds by mid-2026, up from roughly 10% over the winter, so Russia reached for jet power: the jet-powered Geran-4 is built to fly at up to 500 kilometers an hour, several times faster than the piston-engine drones Ukraine spent three years learning to intercept.

Jet-powered Gerans now make up a large and growing share of Russia's nightly launches, and the largest model, the Geran-5, is credited with a range of up to 1,000 kilometers, far enough to put Warsaw within reach of the drone bases Russia has built near its borders. The near-miss on a diplomatic train two kilometers from Poland is what that reach looks like at its western edge.

"That is a luxury"

Marin said she had not felt afraid on the train, and drew the distinction herself.

"Ukrainian people are living in fear every single day. I can travel back to Finland and be safe with my family. I think that is a luxury."

She said she would return. "I didn't feel intimidated or afraid, and I will definitely go back."