MP Yuriy Lutsenko has handed in his resignation as leader of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction in the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada), Lutsenko's spokeswoman Larysa Sarhan has announced.

"Yuriy Lutsenko has submitted his letter of resignation as head of the parliamentary faction of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc political party," Sarhan wrote on her Facebook account on Friday.

The Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction was established in Ukraine's 8th Verkhovna Rada on November 27, 2014. It included 146 MPs with Lutsenko as their leader.

In August 2014, Lutsenko, Ukraine's former interior minister and leader of the Third Ukrainian Republic civil movement, took the helm of the Solidarity political party. Immediately afterwards, he proposed renaming this party as Petro Poroshenko Bloc. An appropriate decision was adopted at the party's congress. The political force also ran in Ukraine's snap parliamentary election in the autumn of 2014. The party ticket at those elections was topped by Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, and Lutsenko was No. 2. After the polls, Klitschko rejected a parliamentary seat and decided to stay Kyiv's mayor.