More than 330 people have been killed in Ukraine since a fragile truce began a month ago, with five million people affected by continuing violence, the United Nations said Wednesday.

A report from the U.N. rights agency also found that before the September 5 ceasefire, pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine had seen their numbers significantly bolstered by an influx of foreign fighters, including apparently Russian citizens.

Ukraine dispatched top envoys to Washington and Brussels on Wednesday to secure help in the face of a surge in clashes with pro-Russian insurgents that saw six more die overnight.

Ukraine appealed to Western powers for support as its truce with pro-Russian rebels seemed increasingly in tatters with 12 deaths reported Tuesday in the separatist east.

The toll was one of the highest reported since the signing of the September 5 truce agreement, and brings the number of civilians killed in sporadic mortar and rocket attacks to 14 since the weekend.

Russian President Vladimir Putin marked his 62nd birthday roaming the Siberian wilderness on Tuesday, as supporters compared his takeover of Crimea to a Herculean labor and 100,000 marched in Chechnya in his honor.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had taken a day off from his "extremely intense" schedule to celebrate his birthday in the depths of Siberia.

The first unarmed drones arrived Monday in Ukraine to help OSCE teams monitor the implementation of a fragile one-month truce in the separatist east, the pan-European security group said.

Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatist fighters marked one month on Sunday since the signing of a Kremlin-backed truce with one the most heated battles of the six-month war in the ex-Soviet state's eastern rustbelt.

Artillery blasts rocked Donetsk on Sunday morning, exactly one month since the rebels signed a 12-point agreement with Kiev's representatives to try to halt the hostilities that have killed over 3,300 people in eastern Ukraine.

A convoy of more than 100 trucks carrying humanitarian aid has left Germany for war-torn eastern Ukraine, the German ministry of economic cooperation and development said Saturday.

The convoy should arrive in mid-October and on October 14 Cooperation Minister Gerd Mueller is also expected to head to the city of Kharkiv, which remains under government control.

Germany hopes to send 200 soldiers to Ukraine to help protect the OSCE mission monitoring the ceasefire in the restive east, the Bild newspaper reported Saturday. 

Fifty members of the parachute regiment would be among the contingent, which must still be approved by Germany's parliament, the daily said, without naming its sources. 

Two children were killed and five were injured in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine when they tried to move an unexploded shell, regional authorities said Saturday.

The incident late Friday occurred in Zugres, a town about 30 kilometers (20 miles) east of Donetsk, the largest city controlled by pro-Russian separatists.

Russia came under mounting pressure from the West on Saturday to save Ukraine's crumbling truce with pro-Kremlin insurgents who are engaged in intensifying raids on an airport vital for sustaining their independence drive.

But analysts said Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to weather isolation and economic sanctions as the cost of cementing his grip on Ukraine's industrial east.