MINSK, July 2. /TASS/. The situation along the contact line in Donbass is rapidly spiraling into critical, Natalya Nikonorova, the foreign minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the DPR envoy to the Minsk peace talks, said at the Tuesday meeting of the Contact Group’s security subgroup.

"The cases of shelling and the caliber of the weapons used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces have multiplied in the past month," the DPR Foreign Ministry quoted Nikonorova as saying in its Telegram channel.

"In this context, the security working group should intensify negotiations and introduce additional measures to monitor and strengthen the ceasefire. For their part, the republics drafted long ago a general project for these measures basing on the ones proposed earlier by the OSCE," she said.

Nikonorova pointed out that a lasting ceasefire might be possible under some conditions. Among them are publication of ceasefire orders, bans on any offensive and intelligence activities, on sniper fire and on any firing, including retaliatory fire, a ban on deployment of heavy weapons in residential areas along with strict disciplinary measures against offenders.

On Tuesday, Minsk hosted a meeting of the Contact Group seeking peace for east Ukraine. Moreover, the Belarussian capital hosted talks of four working groups - humanitarian, political economic and security ones.