Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that the Ukrainian citizens who live in the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are held as prisoners.

"Citizens of Ukraine, who now are in the temporarily occupied territories, I consider to be Ukrainian prisoners, who now are kept by invaders," he said in his annual address to the parliament on Thursday.

Poroshenko said Ukraine and its international partners are prepared to help these areas of Donbas as an integral part of Ukraine.

"But they [Ukraine and its international partners] will finance the restoration of the infrastructure just when they will be sure that all [that is] rebuilt for today won't be destroyed by a full-scale Russian invasion tomorrow," Poroshenko added.