- Category
- Latest news
19-Year-Old Train Attendant Killed Evacuating Passengers During Russian Drone Threat
- Authors
![Photo of Roman Kohanets]( "Photo of Roman Kohanets")
-111f0e5095e02c02446ffed57bfb0ab1.jpeg "Photo of Roman Kohanets")
A 19-year-old train attendant was killed while evacuating passengers after a Russian drone threat halted a train on Ukraine’s Odesa railway, according to Ukrainska Pravda on March 22.
The victim was identified as Ilona Vovk, who was struck by an oncoming train during the evacuation.
Another passenger was injured, while passengers and the locomotive crew on the attacked commuter train escaped unharmed after the evacuation was carried out in time, the outlet reported.
We bring you stories from the ground. Your support keeps our team in the field.
Ukrzaliznytsia stated that Russian forces had attacked the locomotive of a commuter train on the Prydniprovska railway during the same assault.
The incident unfolded as trains were stopping because of the drone threat, and a full investigation into the circumstances of Vovk’s death is now underway.
“This 19-year-old young woman had only just begun her journey as a train attendant,” Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, chairman of the board of Ukrainian Railways, wrote.
He noted that Vovk had dreamed of working on the railway, had completed an internship in Germany, and was on her first full-service trip when she was killed while going to help passengers.
Pertsovskyi added that Vovk had acted bravely as the emergency unfolded, describing her death as a painful reminder of the dangers railway workers face in wartime.
The episode also echoes earlier attacks on rail and transport infrastructure in the south.
The strike hit transport infrastructure in Mykolaiv on March 4, damaging an empty passenger car that had arrived for maintenance and injuring a train inspector, according to Ukrzaliznytsia.
Railway staff spotted the drone overhead and evacuated people from the area before impact, while Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba confirmed the drone struck an empty train and shattered windows.
Local officials also reported a fire at a critical transport site, later extinguished by emergency crews and a railway fire train, as pyrotechnic and chemical units secured the scene.
-7f54d6f9a1e9b10de9b3e7ee663a18d9.png)
-72b63a4e0c8c475ad81fe3eed3f63729.jpeg "Photo of Cyril Barabaltchouk")
