Abstract
Total rejection of the aggression and territory occupation in the international law leads to their hybrid and concealed forms using gangs and mercenaries, proclaiming new “states” etc. These activities constitute serious threat to international security, can cause and already cause the fragmentation of states, anarchy, criminalization of politics, new forms of expansionism and so on. The authors of the article generalize the forms of illegal control over the territory in international law and their application considering the status of Donbas determination.
 International law for more than a century provides for the possibility of separate regulation of the sovereignty and legal rights of the state to the territory, on the one hand, and the implementation of the regime of illegal control over the territory – on the other. Authors argue that in the modern sense, primarily developed by doctrine and courts, illegal control over the territory can be considered as a legal regime, one of the forms of which is occupation, while others are defined as effective, overall, general, de facto control and related to undisclosed actions and informal means used by the aggressor states. This regime is characterized by the exercise of power over the territory by the will of a foreign state, and the forms of implementation of the regime differ depending on whether such a will is officially recognized or concealed.
 The transformation of international humanitarian law after the Second World War erased the boundaries between recognized and officially unrecognized occupation. But unlike occupation, the fact of which may be obvious, the fact of effective or other control over the territory requires the determination by judicial authorities.
 The qualification of illegal control by the Russian Federation of the Donbas in national and international law is ambiguous. The authors argue that the full recognition of the international armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Donbas, as well as Russia’s illegal control over latter should be expected in the process of consideration of a number of cases in the international judicial institutions.
Highlights
International law for more than a century provides for the possibility of separate regulation of the sovereignty and legal rights of the state to the territory, on the one hand, and the implementation of the regime of illegal control over the territory – on the other
The occupation does not envisage a change in the state affiliation of the occupied territory, and the entire civilian population is recognized as protected persons, and their minimum rights are determined
In the modern sense, primarily developed by doctrine and courts, illegal control over the territory can be considered as a legal regime, one of the forms of which is occupation, while others are defined as effective, overall, general, de facto control and related to undisclosed actions and informal means used by the aggressor states
Summary
Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine since 2014 has, among other consequences, led to a temporary loss of government control over Donbass In this regard, a number of issues arose: how to stop aggression, human suffering, restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine; how to legally determine the status of territories over which control is temporarily lost; how to legally determine the responsibility of the aggressor for his actions in Donbass. After a total prohibition on aggressive warfare under the UN Charter, virtually all aggressive actions by states occupying territories are carried out unofficially, by supposedly independent groups, with the creation of formally independent political entities In these conditions, there occurs an interpretation of existing and search for new concepts and approaches designed to qualify illegal forms of control of one state over the territory of another state. The methods used in the article are integrated by a single both inductive and deductive reconstruction approach that combines systemic and functional elements
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