PARIS, June 29. /TASS/. The Kiev-Donbass direct dialogue is the most important condition for the Ukrainian crisis settlement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday after talks with his French counterpart Jean-Marc Ayrault.

"We talked of Ukraine. There is the ‘Normandy format’ here in which Russia and France closely cooperate through the foreign ministries and also through the aides to the leaders of the four states," the Russian minister said.

"Contacts have been intensified in recent days and weeks with a view to "breaking the impasse" of the Minsk agreements’ implementation, including with taking into account the decisions that were taken here, in Paris on October 2, 2015 at a meeting of the presidents of Russia, French Ukraine and German chancellor," he said.

"The most important condition of the progress, as stipulated by the Minsk agreements and the UN Security Council resolution, is the establishment of a direct dialogue between Kiev and Donbass on all the settlement issues," Lavrov said.