Ukrnafta minority shareholders have filed a claim against Ukraine demanding it compensate their losses of $5 billion, although the government will continue to win control of the company and fulfill all its financial liabilities to the state, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk has said.

"I received an official notification from shareholders in Ukrnafta that the shareholders in the company, non-state shareholders, demand that Ukraine pays a debt, or more exactly compensate losses of $5 billion," he said while opening a cabinet meeting in Kyiv on Wednesday.

The premier ordered that national joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy (Naftogaz Ukrainy holds a 50% plus one share stake in Ukrnafata), jointly with the Justice Ministry, urgently draw up an objection to the claim.

The prime minister also ordered that the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine take measures to collect all taxes and duties from companies in which the state holds stakes, including royalties.

Yatseniuk expressed hope that Ukrnafta managers will also pay UAH 1.7 billion of dividends for the state-owned stake, fulfilling a shareholders decision made at a meeting in autumn 2014, and instructed that a new meeting of the company's shareholders be held, with the reshuffling of top managers on the agenda.