Ukraine has made new charges against Russia after claiming their involvement in its conflict with separatist rebels, suggesting Moscow may have had a role in an air strike on Tuesday that killed 11 people, according to The Associated Press.
The accusations come a day before European Union leaders meet to discuss the crisis, where they might consider adopting fresh sanctions against Russia, the AP reported.
"Tomorrow in Brussels, the heads of state and government will again assess the situation on the ground and, should it be required, adopt necessary decisions," the bloc's enlargement commissioner Stefan Fuele told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, according to the AP.
Pushing hard for the EU to take tougher measures against Russia at its Brussels summit on Wednesday, Kiev pointed to the downing of an An-26 military transport plane on Monday and Tuesday's air strike on the Ukraine town of Snizhne, the AP reported. Kiev's fresh charges follow its accusation on Tuesday that the rocket that downed the An-26 may have been fired from Russian territory.
The town's health authorities said 11 people were killed and eight others injured, including a child, in the attack, which hit a residential area of Snizhne, 12 miles from the border with Russia, destroying 12 apartments, according to the AP.
A separatist leader was quoted by Russia's Interfax news as saying the attack had been the work of a Ukrainian warplane, but military officials and the foreign ministry said no Ukrainian fighter planes had taken off since Monday because a search and rescue operation was underway in the area for survivors of the downed An-26, the AP reported.
"Today at 7 a.m. an unknown plane carried out a bombing attack on Snizhne. The flight can be described only as a cynical provocation," Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's National Defence and Security Council, told reporters, according to the AP. His remarks appeared to be an accusation against Russia, since the rebels have not used aircraft in the conflict.
In other fighting in the three-and-a-half month conflict with separatists in the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine, government forces said they had lost another six soldiers in attacks on their positions near the border with Russia, the AP reported.
In all, since the start of the government's "anti-terrorist" operations in mid-April, a total of 258 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed, 922 injured and 45 are captive, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said. Hundreds of civilians and rebels have also died, according to the AP.
