Russian propaganda fakes BBC, Guardian, Independent and Al Jazeera reports on train attack near Yahodyn
Russia is promoting a narrative of an alleged “false flag” operation in an attempt to shift blame for the attack onto Ukraine
Accounts on X and Russia-linked Telegram channels are circulating fake screenshots purporting to show reports by leading international media outlets BBC, The Independent, The Guardian and Al Jazeera. The fabricated reports allegedly quote former MI6 chief Alex Younger as saying that the attack on a train in Ukraine overnight on September 13 near the Yahodyn border crossing, close to the Polish border, was staged as a “false flag” operation to blame Russia.
The fake reports claim that the alleged target was a diplomatic train carrying former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s foreign and security policy adviser Günter Sautter, former CIA Director David Petraeus, and other foreign guests and officials. The purported aim of such an operation was allegedly to draw Europe and NATO into the war.
This is fake. The BBC, The Independent, The Guardian and Al Jazeera did not publish reports containing such claims. The circulated screenshots are fabricated: propagandists used the layouts of genuine reports by these outlets but replaced their headlines and texts with fabricated content.
In the case of the BBC, Russian propagandists forged a report by journalist Jaroslav Lukiv. There is no separate report by Lukiv containing the statements attributed to him in the fake. Together with journalist Amy Walker, he published a report on the train attack, but it does not mention an alleged Ukrainian “false flag” operation.
In other words, propagandists used the layout and headline of a genuine BBC report and replaced its text with fabricated material.
A report by The Guardian journalists Amy Hawkins and Charlotte Higgins was also forged. Their September 13 article describes the incident involving the Russian drone attack and contains no statements of the kind circulated by Russian channels.
In the case of The Independent, propagandists used the name of reporter Arpan Rai. None of her publications contains an article with the content claimed in the fake.
The original text of an Al Jazeera report dated September 14 about the Russian attack was also replaced.
Moreover, Alex Younger died in June 2026 and could not have given comments in September.
On September 13, 2026, near Yahodyn, close to the Polish border, a Russian drone attacked the locomotive of a Kyiv–Warsaw passenger train approximately 15 minutes after a separate diplomatic train carrying Boris Johnson and other Western officials had passed through the area. Ukrzaliznytsia suggested that the diplomatic train could have been a potential Russian target.
Such disinformation is part of a widespread tactic used in Russian information operations: shifting responsibility for its own attacks onto Ukraine. Significantly, the fake emerged just days after another Russian information campaign featuring an almost identical narrative about an alleged “false flag” operation.
On September 10, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Ukrainian intelligence services were preparing a “false flag” attack against the British ambassador and other diplomats in Moscow. According to the FSB version, the attack was supposedly to be blamed on Russia in order to draw London into the conflict. No independent evidence supporting these claims was made public. Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation called the statement an information operation and suggested it could have been an attempt to create advance informational justification for possible Russian provocations against British representatives.
As reported by Ukrinform, Russian propaganda previously forged covers and reports by international media outlets concerning a visit by a U.S. delegation to Kyiv.
By Andrii Olenin