Ukrainian rebels in the Donetsk region said a month-old truce is all but dead and renewed calls for independence as fighting intensified, claiming 10 lives. “There is no truce, buffer zones are non-existent,” the deputy premier of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Andrei Purgin, said via Russian state news service RIA Novosti. Purgin said some estimates put the number of deaths from fighting in the Donetsk region alone at 9,000 in the past six months, though the figure is probably closer to 4,000 or 5,000. That compares with a United Nations estimate of 3,660 deaths and 8,756 injuries in all of eastern Ukraine . At least 331 of those fatalities ocurred after the belligerents agreed to a cease-fire in Minsk, Belarus, on Sept. 5, the UN said yesterday. “Such casualties […]