Ukrainian railway workers evacuated 340 passengers before the strike, but the driver and his assistant did not make it in time. At least 8 people were killed in Russian attacks across Ukraine in a single day.
A Russian Shahed drone struck a passenger train in the Odesa region on Thursday, August 13, 2026, killing the train driver and his assistant, according to a Facebook post by Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, head of Ukrainian Railways. The train was entering a station at the time of the strike to evacuate passengers after a drone threat was detected.
According to Pertsovskyi, all 340 passengers and train crew members were successfully evacuated, with no injuries among them. However, the locomotive crew did not have enough time to fully stop and save themselves. "The locomotive crew did not have enough time to fully stop and evacuate," Pertsovskyi wrote, adding: "This is horrific daily terror and a targeted attack on civilians."
Russian forces launched 133 Shahed drones at Ukraine during the night of August 13, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Air defense shot down 111 of them over northern, southern, and eastern Ukraine. Drone strikes were recorded at 15 locations, while debris from downed targets fell at 16 sites.
Over the past 24 hours, Russian attacks killed at least 8 people across Ukraine and wounded 50, local authorities reported. In the Kherson region, Russian forces targeted 28 settlements, including the regional center of Kherson, killing 3 people and wounding 19. In the Sumy region, 7 people were wounded, while in the Donetsk region, 2 people were killed and 6 wounded, according to Governor Vadym Filashkin.
In the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian attacks killed 1 person and wounded 4. In the Kharkiv region, 8 people were wounded, including a 15-year-old boy, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov. In the Chernihiv region, a 10-year-old girl was wounded in drone attacks, Governor Viacheslav Chaus reported. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, 5 people were wounded in more than 10 drone and artillery attacks, according to Governor Oleksandr Hanzha.
Local authorities in the Odesa region had not released a full daily casualty report at the time of publication.
Romania's General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations issued a warning to residents in the northern part of Tulcea County about the possibility of objects falling from airspace, after the Ministry of Defense detected an aerial target near the border with Ukraine. Additionally, part of a possible drone was spotted in the sea near the Romanian resort of Costinești on Thursday morning, close to the shore and breakwater. Tourists filmed the unidentified object and alerted authorities, and according to Romanian portal Digi24, the object disappeared after a few minutes, leading to speculation that it sank.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it arrested a 55-year-old man in Crimea who, according to the agency, was providing information to Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) about the deployment of Russian military units and equipment and preparing attacks on railway infrastructure. According to the FSB, the man from the Bakhchysarai district used WhatsApp to communicate with an SBU representative and was allegedly tasked with preparing sabotage and terrorist attacks on railway infrastructure facilities and monitoring a vehicle belonging to a Russian Ministry of Defense member stationed in Sevastopol.
