President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said he hopes that the full-scale functioning of the Free Trade Area (FTA) with the European Union will help Ukraine find an alternative to the Russian market.

"The full-scale functioning of the FTA with EU, which will launch from January 1, 2016 will help us to find a constant economic alternative to the politicized and unreliable Russian market, the shutting of which was political blackmail and became one of the elements of Russia aggression against our independent state," Poroshenko said during an extended sitting of the Cabinet of Ministers in Kyiv on Tuesday.