VB.NET never required LINQ to be considered declarative. In my understanding, declarative means that a programming language can speak English, i.e. business logic is written exactly as requirements say. The actual implementation may vary. This is called domain driven design (DDD) in some schools of thought.
For this matter, any object oriented language can be seen as declarative. Which does not take away its imperative functions - those are used to make it as declarative as you want it. And this is power behind properly implemented OO concepts, with a concrete task in mind.
