Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelensky WINS election by a landslide despite his only experience being playing the President on TV, exit polls suggest

Comedian Zelenskiy trounced incumbent Petro Poroshenko, exit polls showed
Poroshenko lost to the 41-year-old TV star across all regions of the country
The incumbent conceded defeat on Sunday and said he had been defeated
Zelenskiy's unorthodox campaign made up of Instagram posts and comedy gigs

A comedian with no political experience won a landslide victory in Ukraine's presidential election Sunday, exit polls showed.

Volodymyr Zelensky, whose only previous political role was playing the president on television, trounced incumbent Petro Poroshenko by taking 73 percent of the vote, according to exit polls conducted by several think tanks.

Poroshenko lost to the television star across all regions of the country, including in the west where he traditionally enjoyed strong support.

At his campaign headquarters, as the exit polls were published, he said: 'I will never let you down.'

'While I am not formally president yet, as a citizen of Ukraine I can tell all post-Soviet countries: 'Look at us! Everything is possible!'

Meanwhile incumbent Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko conceded he had been soundly defeated in a run-off vote by the comedian and would be leaving office next month, but said he did not plan to quit politics altogether.

It was an extraordinary outcome to a campaign that started as a joke but struck a chord with voters frustrated by poverty, corruption and a five-year war that has claimed some 13,000 lives.

The 41-year-old star of TV series 'Servant of the People' will now take the helm of a country of 45 million people beset by challenges and having run on the vaguest of political platforms.

After taking the most votes in last month's first-round election, Zelensky had enjoyed a strong lead over the 53-year-old Poroshenko going into Sunday's poll.

Ukrainian presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy reacts following the announcement of the first exit poll in a presidential election at his campaign headquarters in Kiev, Ukraine