Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine have accused government forces of opening fire on their territory four times in the past 24 hours and said they were trying to establish if anyone had been hurt or killed. Ukraine’s military denied the separatists’ accusations that government troops had attacked, saying it was the rebels who shelled the Ukrainian military. “Despite the fact that our forces were shot by the separatists, they did not open fire on them,” a Ukrainian military press officer told Reuters. Gold has jumped in price on the news.

Monitors of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) recorded multiple shelling incidents along the line of contact between Russian-backed rebels and government forces in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, a diplomatic source told Reuters. The Russians are looking for casus belli…