UMMC and Renova Group came up with a joint statement that denies any allegations as to Bank Koltso Urala holding any forged bills of exchange of Koltsovo Airport that had been created to do harm to the airport.

‘This information is not accurate,’ the statement goes.

‘It was detected in the course of an internal investigation that the airport’s former CFO Anton Fedotov abused his power by forging the bills and allegedly transferring them onto Koltso Urala. The investigation dossier has been handed over to the law-enforcement authorities so that criminal action may be taken; the files are now being looked into.

Koltso Urala currently has no share in the airport’s bills or any unsettled accounting issues of any kind. No one, including the Bank of Russia and the law-enforcement authorities, can lay any claims against the bank and its securities transactions; no one has done it before or is doing this now,’ the statement goes on to explain.

‘Renova Group or UMMC laid no financial claims against one another; the parties provide mutual information support in the course of the investigation. All the issues are understood and evaluated in the same way by both parties involved,’ the companies say.