Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that the sanctions against Russia can only be lifted when all clauses of the Minsk agreements have been implemented.

"The sanctions cannot be lifted until all clauses of the Minsk agreements have been fully implemented. There can be no haggling here: starting from the withdrawal of troops to the return of border control, starting from disarming militants and ending with local elections held under Ukrainian laws. Ukraine will not accept any haggling," Poroshenko told a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

"We are not going to haggle, we are not going to somehow make it worse for Russia or the Russian people. We are going to restore the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. It is this that is the aim of the Minsk agreements," he said.

Poroshenko said that for the first time the Russian leadership recognized that the sanctions are working.

The president also said that what Ukraine needed most was the united support from the European Union.