Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has said that the diplomatic, political, financial and economic means of resolving the Donbas conflict must be backed up by the Ukrainian military's defensive capabilities.

"We are well aware that a solution with the use of weapons is obviously not the best. We want to resolve this conflict by diplomatic, political, financial and economic means, but these means must be backed up by the defensive capability of the Ukrainian military," Yatseniuk said at The Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) foundation in Berlin on Wednesday, the Ukrainian government's press service has reported

Yatseniuk said that the Minsk agreements are the only agreements that remain "on the table".

He said that the Russian-backed terrorists are attempting to strengthen their army "and they get additional lethal weapons, new tanks, artillery systems from Russia, we are aware that they want to buy time."

Yatseniuk said that this was why Ukraine has asked its Western partners to provide it with defensive weapons - "not for offensive operations. We need the sufficient capability to stop Russian-led terrorists from a further advance."

He went on to say that Ukraine recently received information that 30,000 Russian-led terrorists and Russian regular troops, as well as hundreds of new Russian tanks, are in eastern Ukraine.

"Concerted action by the U.S., the EU, G7 member states and by Ukraine are needed to de-escalate the situation, to stop Russia and restore international law and order in Europe," Yatseniuk added.