KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists accused each other Thursday of violating a cease-fire in the eastern part of the country, a potential flash point in what Western officials say are Russian preparations for a possible attack by growing forces massed near Ukraine’s borders.
The Ukrainian military reported 29 cease-fire violations up and down the border before noon, the vast majority of them with weapons that violate previous agreements. Separatists rained down artillery, mortar rounds and other munitions at the front, the military said in a statement posted to social media. In the village of Stanytsia Luhanska near Luhansk, an artillery strike blew a hole through a kindergarten building. Three adults suffered concussions, officials said. No children were reported injured.
It was not immediately clear whether the reported shelling in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine amounted to more than the usual flare-ups in an eight-year war there, but the United States has warned that Russia could instigate an incident as a pretext for an attack.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, attending a NATO meeting in Brussels, told reporters that the reports of shelling are “certainly troubling” and that the United States is still gathering details. “But you know we’ve said for some time that the Russians might do something like this in order to justify a military conflict, so we’ll be watching this very closely.”
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