The state debt in wage arrears to miners currently stands at about UAH 650 million, which corresponds to the beginning of 2015, Minister of Energy and Coal Industry of Ukraine Volodymyr Demchyshyn has said.

"At the moment, the debt does not exceed UAH 650 million, which is also quite a large sum. At the beginning of the year there was about the same debt - during 2015 the debt to miners has not grown. This is given the fact that support in the form of subsidies was UAH 900 million, while last year the figure was UAH 5 billion," he said.

Demchyshyn added that the government has decided to redistribute UAH 312 million, which will be used for payments to miners.

"I am confident that these funds will be used to repay this debt. At the moment the debt is less than the amount of one-month wages," he concluded.