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PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) -- Three Kosovo Serbs were injured by a grenade in the latest ethnic violence to undermine the international peacekeeping effort in the war-torn province, NATO said Wednesday.
The grenade exploded late Tuesday in Gnjilane, the largest town in the southeastern region where American troops are supposed to keep order. No further details were available but the sector is known for one of the highest concentrations of Serbs left in the province.
Meanwhile, Russia blamed its NATO peacekeeping partners Tuesday for attacks against Kosovo Serbs while victims of a mortar attack in an area where American troops are supposed to keep order were buried.
Russia leveled its charge one day after attackers presumed to be ethnic Albanians fired nine mortars onto the southeastern village of Klokot, killing two Serbs and injuring five. The Kosovo Liberation Army was supposed to have turned all mortars and other heavy weapons over to peacekeepers, although it was unclear whether the guerrillas launched the attack.
"Violence is raging in Kosovo. The killings of peaceful civilians, arsons and robberies of non-Albanians multiply," the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. "In essence, ethnic cleansing is in full swing in Kosovo. This is the outcome of the 'policy of pacifying' Albanian separatism on the part of several Western nations."
The statement was a clear reference to American support for ethnic Albanians and the separatist KLA during the 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, which ended when Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accepted a peace plan in June.
Russia called for "energetic actions" to stop "terrorism, separatism and ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic. The statement also charged Kosovo's independence-minded ethnic Albanians of openly challenging the international community.
On Tuesday, Serb villagers in Klokot buried the victims of the mortar attack -- a 23-year-old woman and a 24-year-old man. An American tank stood guard outside the Serbian Orthodox church as the solemn procession passed through the village.
Threats by ethnic Albanian neighbors have prompted most of the province's 200,000 Serbs to flee. But Klokot villagers vowed to stay, despite the attack.
"We don't have anywhere to go," cried Ljubica Marinkovic, an old woman gathered outside a house with a hole in the roof from a mortar blast. "Should we just go on the street?"
Russia vehemently opposed NATO's bombing campaign and generally sided with the Serbs, Moscow's traditional allies. The Russians have sent 3,600 peacekeepers to Kosovo.
Hopes that ethnic tensions may be easing were raised Monday when ethnic Albanians in the northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica called off a planned demonstration after U.N. and French officials announced a plan to allow 25 Albanian families a day to return to their homes in the Serb-controlled sector of the city.
The city has been divided along ethnic lines, with ethnic Albanians on one side of the Ibar River, the Serbs on the other and French troops trying to keep them separated to prevent violence.
On Tuesday, however, a Serb leader in Kosovska Mitrovica denied he had agreed to the resettlement plan, according to Serbia's state-run Tanjug news agency.
"Relentless Albanian onslaughts ... are very dangerous" the Serb official, Oliver Ivanovic, said. He was referring to several incidents when hopeful returnees had clashed with French troops guarding the bridge separating the two communities.