There's people in the US intelligence, military, CIA, etc, who do not want rapprochement with Russia. So they will leak stuff, and make stuff up, to make it harder for Trump to cooperate with Russia. My suspicion is Kiev was asked/advised to ramp up the violence against the pro-Russian rebels in the east precisely to put the spotlight in the western media on alleged Russian-backed separatist activities, blaming the pro-Russian rebels for initiating the aggression, for the purpose of undermining Trump's engagement with Putin/Russia.