Ukrainian government forces repelled an offensive near the town of Maryinka in the Donetsk region on Wednesday, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko has said.

Having notified its international partners of its plans, the Ukrainian army "redeployed artillery weapons from the line of contact, where they were stationed in accordance with the Minsk agreements, and repelled the attack staged by pro-Russian soldiers," Poroshenko said in his annual address to Ukraine's parliament on Thursday.

Notably, the attack on the Ukrainian army's positions near Maryinka came at 4:00 a.m. on a June day, the president said.

"It is a certain historical parallel. But the Ukrainian Armed Forces mounted an appropriate response yesterday," Poroshenko said.