Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday criticized investigations by the Prosecutor General's Office into developments last winter on Kyiv's Independence Square that resulted in the overthrow of the then-government and expressed dissatisfaction with the overall performance of the top law office.

"I am dissatisfied, but not with the performance of the prosecutor general but with that of the Prosecutor General's Office," Poroshenko said in answering a question at a news conference in Kyiv.

At the same time, he said that, "the first time in the history of Ukraine," criminal action had been launched against top executives in enterprises that are "traditional hotbeds of corruption."

"The top managers have been arrested in traditional hotbeds of corruption that have existed in Ukraine throughout these 23 years [of independence]," the president said.

In this category he put the State Railway Administration [Ukrzaliznytsia], the state-owned alcohol enterprise Ukrspyrt, the state postal service Ukrposhta, and generating companies.

These and "other companies … are sources of corruption, where embezzlement running into billions of hryvni has been detected," he said, adding that the corruption cases would be "handed over to the courts immediately."

"That is something that has never been done in Ukraine before," Poroshenko said.