Announcement comes with leader facing pressure to end separatist war

KIEV, Jan. 14 - President Petro Poroshenko said Thursday he wanted EU and US help in securing Crimea's return from Russia and vowed to win back the separatist east this year, AFP reported.

The bold announcements by the pro-Western leader came with Poroshenko facing building public pressure to end Ukraine's brutal 20-month campaign against pro-Russian insurgents and simultaneously to stand up to Moscow's annexation of the strategic Black Sea peninsula.

Poroshenko provided few details about how exactly he intended to win back Crimea -- a tsarist-era Russian naval base that Moscow annexed just weeks after the ouster of pro-Kremlin Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.

He told a wide-ranging press conference that Kiev intended to launch an "international process" aimed at restoring the war-ravaged and economically faltering former Soviet nation's original borders.

"The fight for Crimea's return remains a priority," the 50-year-old political and business veteran said.

"It is my profound conviction that the best format for starting this process is the Geneva-plus format that includes our EU and US partners and possibly the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum."