State Media Pick Up Reports Of Ukrainian Strike At LPR, Flag Violations Of Minsk Agreements

More Russian media outlets have picked up the aforementioned report of an alleged Ukrainian attack on several localities in Luhansk People's Republic, with RIA Novosti pointing to alleged violations of Minsk agreements and Gazeta.ru citing recent combative remarks from senior Russian officials.

• RIA Novosti cites an LPR officer as noting that Ukrainian security forces "fired on the territory of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic four times, including from mortars prohibited by the Minsk agreements, and then opened fire on another settlement." The officer adds that Ukraine, "grossly violating the ceasefire, fired at a village near Donetsk."
• This is not the first time Russian media outlets circulate reports of alleged Ukrainian military provocations in the Donbas. Earlier this week, Luhansk People's Republic claimed that its militiaman was killed by a Ukrainian sniper and that it thwarted a planned terror attack with links to Kyiv. Meanwhile, the Russian Investigative Committee opened a probe into reports of unmarked mass graves of civilians" in east Ukraine.
• The U.S. pushed back against a flurry of earlier Russian reports, as a senior Biden administration official warned that Moscow is stepping up dissemination of false claims, possibly trying to create a pretext for a military intervention into Ukrainian territory.
• Furthermore, it is worth noting that Ukraine has been aware of the risk of a Russian provocation. U.S. war correspondent Nolan Petersen tweeted last Friday that a Ukrainian front-line soldier stationed near Luhansk told him that his "unit is under strict orders to obey the ceasefire and not shoot back."
• Given that Ukraine and Donbas separatists have been waging an armed conflict for 8 years now, exchanges of fire are not unusual. However, there is a sense of concern among some in the commentariat about the fact that a number of Russian state media have circulated the news today, which might be representative of the way the Kremlin is shaping the narrative about the ongoing crisis.