KIEV, Sept. 11 – Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov has rejected the possibility of declaring the areas in Donbas controlled by militants an occupied territory.

"We need not to declare something, but to liberate the territory. And our task is not to turn Donbas into a frozen conflict zone. Any actions in the east can be considered only from this viewpoint. Therefore I rule out a format in which Ukraine would agree to Russia controlling part of Donetsk and Luhansk regions," he said in an interview with Focus magazine.