The presidential candidate of Ukraine, incumbent head of state Petro Poroshenko, losing the presidential elections according to the results of exit polls, has stated he did not intend to leave politics.

"I will leave the office, but I want to firmly emphasize that I am not leaving politics," he said at his headquarters on Sunday immediately after the results of exit polls had been announced.

"I remain in politics, I will fight for Ukraine and I want to explain why: because our team must protect the achievements that we, together with the Ukrainian people, won in extremely difficult conditions during these five years," Poroshenko said.

According to him, it is necessary to protect the European and Euro-Atlantic strategy, "those frontiers that we have reached during these five years and which, unfortunately, are now under threat."

"Our team will defend them. Our team will defend the course towards membership in the European Union and NATO," Poroshenko stressed.

"And if the Minsk agreements signed, including by Ukraine, are not implemented, our team will defend the prolongation of the sanctions regime," he said.

Poroshenko stated the need to "protect Ukraine and lead it forward." "We did not win the fight today, but that does not mean that we lost the war," he said.

The president also lamented the fact that a lot of lies were told about him.

"Over these years [of his presidency] they told a lot of terrible lies about me, and if I could believe in it, I would not have voted for myself. However, time will pass and history will set things straight," Poroshenko said.