Ukraine’s president has called the shelling of a kindergarten in the country’s occupied east a “big provocation” by pro-Russian forces as Canada condemned the incident.
“Canada strongly condemns the unprovoked Russian military activity in the Donbas region of Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement Thursday evening.
“Innocent civilians were put in danger by this clear effort by Russia to escalate the crisis. We commend the restraint shown by Ukraine.”
Russia’s Canadian embassy fired back at Joly in a statement, calling her comments “a great disappointment” that “have nothing to do with reality.”
Ukraine’s military claimed Thursday that Russian-backed rebels fired artillery rounds on a kindergarten facility in a village in the Luhansk region. It was hit by shelling but no casualties were reported.
The shelling came as both Ukraine and the rebels who have occupied territories in eastern Ukraine since 2014 exchanged allegations of breaking a ceasefire.
“The shelling of a kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska by pro-Russian forces is a big provocation,” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Twitter.
He called for an “effective mechanism” for recording ceasefire violations, which have been common throughout the eight-year conflict in the region.
Lt.-Gen. Valery Zaluzhnogo, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said in a statement that 47 ceasefire violations by Russian forces occupying the territory occurred Thursday.
“(Russia) carried out targeted shelling of social infrastructure objects, two civilians were injured,” Zaluzhnogo said.
Meanwhile, Russia-backed separatists accused Ukraine of opening fire on their territory four times in the past 24 hours.
Zaluzhnogo, though, accused Russia of using “misinformation and propaganda” to accuse Ukraine of “shooting civilians” and that any action so far has been defensive in nature.
Ukraine does not plan any offensive in the area or the “shelling of civilians,” he said.
“Any harm that may be caused to people or objects of infrastructure in temporarily occupied territories is provocation,” he said.
Zaluzhnogo called the alleged firing “gross violations” of a peace agreement established in 2015 and that it should be investigated.
In April 2014, Russia-backed rebels seized government buildings in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine, and proclaimed a “people’s republic” there. They battled Ukrainian troops and volunteer battalions.
A peace agreement was achieved in February 2015 in Minsk, Belarus, that envisaged a ceasefire. It was signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.
More than 14,000 people have since been killed in nearly eight years of fighting.
Russia has always denied its involvement in the conflict, accusing Ukraine of waging war on its own civilians, referring to the rebel groups. The Russian embassy in Canada repeated that argument in its statement Thursday.
Zaluzhnogo said that Ukraine plans to evacuate some residents of the occupied territory in the country’s east, while Russia has begun evacuations from the occupied territory in preparation for shelling from heavy artillery, Global News has learned.
Sanctions from western countries should follow intensifying Russian shelling of civilian areas, the Ukrainian government and top military sources told Global News.
A sharp rise of skirmishes on Thursday in the occupied east regions of Ukraine has raised concern that Moscow may use the situation in the region as a pretext for invading the country.
Russia currently has around 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s border. U.S. President Joe Biden warned Thursday that Russia could invade Ukraine within days and that there is “every indication” that Putin plans to attack.
— with files from the Associated Press, Reuters and Global’s Leslie Stojsic and Sean Boynton
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