Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin last night discussed with his French counterpart a sharp deterioration of the situation in Donbas.

"We have a real deterioration of the security situation in Donbas, with a large number of shellings. We have a lot of wounded, Russia deliberately destabilizes the situation. I discussed this with my counterparts in the Normandy format. Last night I had a detailed conversation with the French foreign minister in order to break this conscious escalation of the situation by Russia," he said at a joint news conference with Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland Didier Burkhalter in Kyiv on Wednesday.

According to Klimkin, the parties will continue to do everything possible to prevent escalation in the region, as well as to reach an agreement on the release of hostages.

The press center of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) headquarters reported as of 06:00 on Wednesday that in the past 24 hours militants fired 85 times at the positions of the Armed Forces in Donbas wounding eight Ukrainian servicemen. In the coastal area, militants used weapons against Ukrainian military 25 times, in the Donetsk sector 28 times, and in the Luhansk sector 32 times.

Militants used 152-mm, 122-mm and 120-mm artillery, including missile launchers, as well as 120-mm and 82-mm mortars, automatic and anti-tank grenade launchers, large-caliber machine guns and small arms.