Ukrainian military officials and Russian-backed separatists accused each other on Thursday of violating cease-fire agreements on the volatile front lines of the long-running conflict, as Moscow continued amassing troops along the borders of Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reports

Leaders of the Russian puppet states Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic said Ukrainian forces had launched grenades and mortars at their territory, while Ukrainian officials said Kyiv-controlled areas of Luhansk came under sustained fire Thursday morning. A kindergarten in the town of Stanytsia Luhanska took a direct hit, injuring two teachers, but thankfully no children. A high school and a home in the village of Vrubivka were also hit, but there were no immediate reports on casualties there, according to the local authorities.

The escalating crossfire comes amid movement in the Russian Parliament to officially recognize the two rebel regions, an action almost certainly engineered to create a pretext for the full on invasion of Ukraine by Russian and Belarusian military forces, with the goal of stamping out a nascent democracy in the backyard of corrupt shitholes whose leadership prefer authoritarianism and kleptocracy since that’s more fun and easy to manage than shit like elections and free expression.

UPDATE 2/17/21 9:29 AM EST: In related news, the Russians have expelled the deputy chief of the US diplomatic mission in Moscow, the AP’s Carl Quintanilla reports. Separately on Thursday, President Biden told reporters the risk of a Russian attack on Ukraine is “very high” and that he has no plans to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin.