KIEV, Nov. 14 – The authorities are planning to seek a political solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine, rather than conduct a military operation to return the territories controlled by members of illegal armed groups, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said.

"The issue concerns a political solution. Such a military operation would also affect the civilian population, our Ukrainian citizens," he said in an interview with German newspaper Rheinische Post.

Klimkin said that the Ukrainian government planned to continue to comply with the ceasefire and continue the search for a political solution.