Kyiv is interested in keeping the Normandy Format of negotiating, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said.

"The process of a real restoration of territorial integrity and not a formal one, and the reintegration of residents of the occupied part of Donbas into Ukraine, the return to Ukraine of the whole of Donbas is going to be hard, painful and lengthy. According to the common view that we have with our partners, it is exactly and exclusively the Minsk process that opens the path to the beginning of this process," Poroshenko said when making his annual address to the Verkhovna Rada on Tuesday.

"Therefore we are interested more than anybody else in its continuation and also in preservation of the Normandy Format. And all kinds of attacks on it, which were pursued by the aggressor state, have proved to be fruitless," he added.

"At the end of the day, one can be endlessly exercising invention of different formats, but never forget that any kind of format only makes sense so long as Russia participates in it. And as long as it is multilateral," Poroshenko said.