Volodymyr Zelensky candidate for the post of President of Ukraine during the concert program of the studio 'Kvartal 95'.

A comedian with a popular anti-corruption message but no political experience took the lead in the first round of Ukraine's presidential election on Sunday, exit polls showed.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, 41, who plays a fictional president in a TV show, had consistently led opinion polls in a three-horse race against incumbent Petro Poroshenko and former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Zelenskiy secured 30.6 percent of votes, compared with Poroshenko's 17.8 percent, according to an updated exit poll released at 2300 (2000 GMT), three hours after voting closed.

No candidate is expected to receive more than half the votes, meaning the election would go to a runoff on April 21. Out of a crowded field of 39 candidates, none of the likely winners wants to move Ukraine back into Russia's orbit.

At stake is the leadership of a country on the front line of the West's standoff with Russia after the 2014 Maidan street protests ejected Poroshenko's Kremlin-friendly predecessor and Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula.

Investors are watching to see if the next president will push reforms required to keep the country in an International Monetary Fund bailout program that has supported Ukraine through war, sharp recession and a currency plunge.

"I would like to say 'thank you' to all the Ukrainians who did not vote just for fun," Zelenskiy told cheering supporters on Sunday evening. "It is only the beginning, we will not relax."

In keeping with the relaxed style of his campaign, Zelenskiy's election night venue provided a bar with free alcohol, table football and table tennis games.

Poroshenko called the result a "severe lesson," especially from younger voters and appealed for their support in the second round.

"You see changes in the country, but want them to be quicker, deeper and of higher quality. I have understood the motives behind your protest," he said after the exit poll.

Poroshenko, who said the elections had been fair and in line with international standards, sought to portray Zelenskiy as unfit to represent Ukraine abroad, especially in taking on Russian President Vladimir Putin in international talks.

Putin "dreams of a soft, pliant, tender, giggling, inexperienced, weak, ideologically amorphous and politically undecided president of Ukraine. Are we really going to give him that opportunity?" Poroshenko said.

He also played on a suspicion that Zelenskiy's campaign was masterminded by Ihor Kolomoisky, a tycoon whose channel airs Zelenskiy's shows. The two men deny colluding.

"Fate decided to put me up against that Kolomoisky puppet in the second round. We won't give Kolomoisky any chance," Poroshenko said.

Zelenskiy swiftly hit back by spotlighting Poroshenko's connections with another businessman.

Tymoshenko, who won 14.2 percent of the votes, challenged the accuracy of the exit poll, saying her internal polling put her in second place behind Zelenskiy. She said at a news conference that she might contest the final result.

Stuart Culverhouse, head of sovereign and fixed-income research at investment bank Exotix, said Zelenskiy had tried to present himself more professionally by meeting business leaders and talking of orthodox economic policies.

"That said, if the exit polls are confirmed in the official vote count, we would expect Zelenskiy to be put under greater pressure in the run-up to the second round to flesh out his policy agenda," he said.

Poroshenko has fought to integrate the country with the European Union and NATO, while strengthening the military that is fighting Kremlin-backed separatists in the east of the country.

Voting around the country offered a snapshot of Ukraine's recent history. Soldiers lined up to vote in makeshift polling stations in the east.

Voters formed long lines outside polling stations in neighboring EU member Poland, where between one and two million Ukrainians have moved, many in search of jobs and higher wages.

Pushing the use of the Ukrainian language and instrumental in establishing a new independent Orthodox church, confectionary magnate Poroshenko, 53, has cast himself as the man to prevent Ukraine again becoming a Russian vassal state.

But reforms crucial to keep foreign aid flowing have been patchy. Conflict in the eastern Donbass region has killed 13,000 people in five years and rumbles on despite Poroshenko's promise to end it within weeks. Frustration over low living standards and pervasive corruption has left the door open for Zelenskiy.

The majority of voters in separatist-held eastern Ukraine and Crimea were unlikely to take part in the election as they need to undergo a special registration process on Ukraine-controlled territory.

But Crimean residents who kept their Ukrainian citizenship after the Russian annexation five years ago crossed the land border to mainland Ukraine, from where buses took them to the nearest polling stations.