Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called on compatriots not to believe populists who promise a reduction in the price of natural gas, the press service of the head of state has said.

"Listen today to the promises of populists to reduce the price of gas by two, three, four or even six times. This can be done only by returning to Russian gas bondage," Poroshenko said at a meeting with the staff of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine in Kyiv on Monday.

He stressed that he would in no circumstances allow returning Ukraine "to the gas bondage" of the Russian Federation.

"We have barely got out of this bondage and are now trying to return there again. I will not allow the country to return to the so-called 'Russian world' under any circumstances. I advise you to listen less to the sweet voices of pseudo-defenders. Why? Because there is a lot of honey in them, there is little truth, or maybe there's no truth at all," Poroshenko said.

Commenting on the situation with publicly guaranteed debt, the president said: "The greatest number of loans was taken by political forces that currently defend ordinary people most loudly. $54 billion is the aggregate debt heritage that today's truth fighters took in 2007-2013, when the respective political forces were in power."

Poroshenko also recalled the promises and commitments undertaken by the Ukrainian authorities to equalize domestic gas prices with the import price.

"It would not be superfluous to recall that Ukraine took the obligation to equalize domestic gas prices with the price of imported gas when [Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr] Groysman was still the mayor of Vinnytsia. The respective memorandum with the IMF was signed on October 31, 2008. The Fund was then headed by Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Who was prime minister at the time? It's very easy to look into Wikipedia. But whoever it is, such obligations are not personal, but international legal. Although obligations and money were taken by certain people, money must be returned by others," he said.