A peacekeeping contingent is vital for a lasting ceasefire in Donbas, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.

"We need to deploy peacekeepers for the sake of lasting de-escalation… at first they will be tasked to operate along the contact line… Peacekeepers remain topical… I do not rule out that we will hold bilateral negotiations in New York," he said after an expanded meeting of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council in Kyiv on Tuesday.

The chief of state said though that "the existent ceasefire regime, although a fragile one, gave modest hope for the optimism that there will be no need for peacekeepers if the other provisions of the Minsk agreements are put into life."

Poroshenko said that the two main provisions of the Minsk agreements must be implemented, i.e. "the withdrawal of foreign armed units from the Ukrainian territory and the control over the Ukraine-Russia border."

"We can resolve all other problems, humanitarian and social, on our own because this is not an internal conflict but Russia's aggression against independent Ukraine," the president added.