President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko during the escalation of the situation in Donbas has held two telephone conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the press service of the Ukrainian presidential administration told Interfax-Ukraine.

"During the aggravation of the situation in Donbas, the president of Ukraine has held two telephone conversations with the president of Russia to stop the constant shelling of Avdiyivka and restore the power supply to the city, as well as to free the hostages, including Oleh Sentsov and Roman Sushchenko," the press service said, noting that these contacts took place in coordination with the European partners on the Normandy format.

The press service also explained that there was no separate message about them due to the ineffectiveness of these conversations.

Earlier, the Russian newspaper Kommersant, citing a source, reported that Putin and Poroshenko have had four telephone conversations since the beginning of 2017. In particular, the penultimate telephone conversation took place on February 11, the last conversation - on February 21.