The Ukrainian army and pro-Russian separatists blame each other after bombings in eastern Ukraine.
This part of the country has been in the grip of a conflict since 2014. In a statement posted on Facebook, the Ukrainian army accused the separatist fighters of having targeted "with particular cynicism" the locality of Stanitsa Luganska, in particular affecting a kindergarten .
The attack damaged infrastructure and "half of the locality was left without electricity," the statement said.
Photos released show a shell hole in the school wall and bricks strewn across a room amid children's toys.
Kyiv and separatists blame each other
The Ukrainian army later added that "three school employees were injured" and counted "at 10 a.m. [French time], 29 violations of the ceasefire" throughout the conflict zone, which made a wounded Ukrainian soldier.
For their part, the authorities of the separatist region of Lugansk, quoted by the Russian news agency Interfax, announced that “the situation on the front line has deteriorated over the past 24 hours”.
The head of the region's militia, Ian Leshchenko, accused the Ukrainian army of "trying to push the conflict towards an escalation".
"Warn Kiev"
Russia, accused by Washington of seeking to create "pretexts" to attack Ukraine and which has massed more than 100,000 soldiers on the country's borders, expressed its "deep concern".
“We hope that our opponents in Western capitals, in Washington, in NATO use all their influence to warn the authorities in Kiev against a new escalation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
A "provocation"
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has accused Russia of "provocation" aimed at "discrediting" Kiev and justifying intervention.
“A nursery school was bombed in what we consider to be, what we know to be an operation (…) designed to discredit Ukrainians, designed to create a pretext, a false provocation justifying Russian action,” Boris Johnson told journalists during a visit to a military base.
“We were very concerned that we would see more things like this in the coming days,” he added.
The British and Americans believe that Moscow could prepare a pretext in the conflict which has pitted the Ukrainian army for eight years against separatists sponsored by Moscow in eastern Ukraine, to justify its intervention.
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Bombing raid
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