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Ukraine said shelling in its war-ravaged east intensified as the pro-Russian militants the army has been battling described a month-old truce as all but dead.

The insurgents fired artillery rounds at the military 33 times in the past day and keep trying to storm the airport in Donetsk, the combat zones biggest city, the Defense Ministry said today on Facebook. Five civilians died yesterday amid shelling in Donetsk, with sporadic blasts still audible this morning, the city council said on its website.

There is no truce, buffer zones are non-existent, Andrei Purgin, deputy premier of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Peoples Republic, said yesterday via Russian state-run news service RIA Novosti. Such casualties make any political union with Ukraine impossible.

While a Sept. 5 cease-fire has stemmed the bloodshed in Ukraines easternmost regions, its been marred by daily violence. The Foreign Ministry in Kiev says the truce has been violated more than 1,300 times, killing 64 soldiers and 36 civilians. Purgin said the rebels are ready to resume peace talks once Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe agree on the conditions, according to RIA.

Ukraine, the U.S. and the European Union blame Russia for providing weapons, financing and troops to the separatists, a charge Moscow denies. The two sides imposed tit-for-tat sanctions that have depressed economic growth in both the EU and Russia, causing the latter to flirt with a recession.

Russias ruble strengthened 0.2 percent against the dollar today in Moscow, trimming its slide over the last three months to 14.9 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Russias central bank shifted the rubles trading band yesterday by the most since March 4 after the fourth intervention this month took the amount spent to defend the currency to $1.85 billion.

Ukraines hryvnia, this years worst-performing currency, was little changed at 12.95 per dollar.

While the cease-fire may not be fully observed, Russia deems the move constructive and a positive process, Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putins foreign-policy aide, told reporters today in Moscow. Putin may meet Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French leader Francois Hollande at a summit in Milan next week. He isnt asking for sanctions to be lifted, Ushakov said.

Poroshenko said last week that shelling must stop for 24 hours for the government to pull its troops back and create a 30-kilometer (19-mile) buffer zone. The government in Kiev said yesterday marked the second occasion since Oct. 5 that a halt in shelling by the military went unreciprocated.

A day of silence announced by the National Security and Defense Council was accompanied by rebel shelling against government troops and cities in the Luhansk region, which resulted in a number of wounded and killed, Luhansks city council said in a statement on its website.

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Ukraine Says Shelling Worsens as Rebels Eye Independence