The escalation of the conflict in Donbas is an attempt by Russia to force Ukraine and its international partners to agree to Moscow's terms regarding the work of an armed [OSCE] mission in the conflict zone," said Presidential Administration speaker on Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) issues Andriy Lysenko.

"We haven't had a day this year when so many servicemen were killed at once. But we think that the Russian Federation in such a manner is attempting to compel Ukraine and its international partners to agree to [Moscow'] terms. It's not by accident that [Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry] Peskov declared how the international mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which should be armed, should work," Lysenko said on Channel 5 on Tuesday evening.

Earlier on Tuesday ATO spokesman Oleksandr Motuzianyk reported on seven deaths and nine injuries among Ukrainian troops over the last 24 hours as a result of militant artillery strikes.

Peskov in Moscow said on Tuesday that the OSCE mission in Donbas is a monitoring mission – not a police mission. He said broadening the OSCE mission's functions depends on the decision of combatants in eastern Ukraine. "This is first and foremost a monitoring mission. In our understanding, it is not a police mission. Yes, the subject [of expanding the mission's mandate] is being discussed, and not for the first time. There is discussion of an armed monitoring mission," Peskov told journalists, answering the question of whether an OSCE police mission was discussed by Normandy Four leaders [German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Holland, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin] during their recent telephone conference.