Ukraine's fifth president and European Solidarity Party leader Petro Poroshenko has not arrived for questioning at the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI) on Wednesday and will be called back after July 21, SBI Director Roman Truba has said.

"Petro Poroshenko has not appeared for questioning today… He will be called again for conducting investigation activities," Truba said at a briefing in Kyiv on Wednesday.

Truba expressed the hope that Poroshenko would answer investigators' questions.

The SBI director said Poroshenko's lawyers had notified the SBI that their client could not appear for questioning on July 17, because he was participating in the campaign for early parliamentary elections.

Truba said Poroshenko would be called back for questioning after July 21, 2019.

As reported, during a live radio program hosted by Kyiv-based Novoe Vremya Radio, Tuba said July 16 his bureau was not aware that Poroshenko would fail to appear on July 17 for questioning. He said investigators would be waiting for him to conduct activities involved in their investigation.

"As for the summons for Poroshenko to appear for questioning, SBI investigators currently don't have information that he will not appear," Truba said, expressing the hope Poroshenko would arrive for questioning on July 17.

On the same evening, Poroshenko's lawyer, Managing Partner at the Golovan and Partners law firm Ihor Golovan, said he had personally sent the SBI a letter stating his client had not received a summons from the SBI to appear on July 17. Golovan informed the SBI that Poroshenko would not be able to appear for questioning until July 21 and offered investigators to schedule a meeting after that date.