Ukraine International Airlines (UIA, Kyiv), the largest airline in the country, has denied a UAH 400 million debt to the national budget earlier mentioned by Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan.

An Interfax-Ukraine correspondent has reported that UIA President Yuriy Miroshnykov gave the information at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.

"As for UAH 400 million announced by the minister I do not know how he calculated these figures, but there is no such a debt. I can suppose that this is the disputable sum. One hour is not enough to name the number of court claims regarding the fee to the special fund, which from the certain moment, according to the earnest conviction of UIA backed not only by opinions of independent law examinations, but also court rulings, stopped being lawful, and UIA stopped paying it," he said.

Earlier Omelyan said that UIA owes UAH 400 million to the national budget and he advised the airline's top managers to focus on the issue.

"I would sincerely advise the UIA owners and management to focus on the issue of paying UAH 400 million to the national budget, the development of Dnipro airport, Dniproavia and many other issues," Omelyan said.

In the middle of May 2016, amendments to the rules for assigning airlines to flights took effect in Ukraine. The document introduced the condition of paying government levies described in the Air Code of Ukraine in the full amount.

UIA challenged the amendments in the district administrative court of Kyiv. At the end of May 2016 the court banned the State Aviation Service from taking into account the debt of the airline to the special fund when the airline is assigned for flights.

The State Aviation Service said that the authority will challenge the decision of the district administrative court of Kyiv, as it creates preferences for one airline on the market.