KIEV, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a phone conversation to discuss deploying UN peacekeepers in Ukraine's volatile eastern Donbas region.

According to a statement released Thursday by Poroshenko's press service, the two presidents discussed the deployment in the Normandy format, a diplomatic group comprising Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France.

The Normandy format, also known as the Normandy contact group, was set up to resolve the conflict in Donbas that erupted in April 2014.

The two presidents concurred that it was important to intensify the group's work in order to agree on the UN peacekeepers' deployment in Donbas.

The armed confrontation between Ukrainian government troops and pro-independence insurgents in Donbas has claimed about 10,000 lives.

On Sept. 5, 2017, Putin said Moscow would ask the UN Security Council to send peacekeepers to patrol the contact line, which separated Ukrainian and separatist forces in Donbas.

Kiev said it would agree to the deployment of the UN patrol only if the troops were stationed across the whole area controlled by the rebels, including the Ukrainian-Russian border.