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Kiev owes $23.5 mln to miners at state-owned companies in Donbas

In late 2014, several coal companies together will local trade union organizations filed suits demanding settlement of the overdue salaries but all the claims were rejected

MOSCOW, August 14. /TASS/. Kiev’s overdue payments to miners in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in Donbass make $23.5 million, trade union’s leader Maxim Parshin told the Donetsk News Agency on Friday.

"Ukraine does not settle overdue salaries to all state-run coal companies in DPR," he said. "Still overdue are payments for July-September, 2014, where Kiev owes to the miners about half a billion hryvnias."

"In late 2014, several coal companies together will local trade union organizations filed suits demanding settlement of the overdue salaries but all the claims were rejected," the trade union leader continued. "In written explanations Ukrainian courts said, for example, a faxed copy was not clear - so the miners took the claims to the courts, though risking to be arrested at Ukrainian checkpoints. However, the Ukrainian courts once again refused to register the claims."

The official said the DPR authorities, unlike Kiev, "are trying to observe their obligations to miners, including in payment of salaries, despite all the problems of the war time."

DPR has been paying money to miners from the revenues received from sold coal. The revenues are also used for development of the production.