The Normandy Format that includes Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France is currently not good enough to efficiently resolve the crisis in Donbas and it works slowly but the loss of this mechanism would be harmful, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"The Normandy Format doesn't actually show the super-efficiency. We can only regret that it works so slowly. But there is no other," Putin told a press conference in Moscow on Friday.

Still, the work must be continued in the format, he said.

"If we lose this mechanism, then the situation will degrade very fast, which we wouldn't want," Putin said.