"The status quo can hardly be restored," Alexander Izosimov said. He added that the only way to resolve the conflict was "to change the composition of the shareholders - either one shareholder gets control of the company or some of them withdraw."
VimpelCom is best known for the BeeLine trademark, one of Russia's most popular mobile operators. Telenor holds 26.6% of shares in VimpelCom, while Altimo (previously named Alfa Telecom), the telecoms arm of financial and industrial holding Alfa Group, holds a 32.9% stake.
Due to the ongoing dispute, the VimpelCom board again failed to approve the company's budget for 2006.
"VimpelCom management failed to approve the 2006 budget for a second time," the statement read. "According to the company's charter, eight out of nine board members must approve the budget for it to be adopted."
On December 14, 2005, three board members - representatives of Telenor - voted against the budget because they disagreed with the terms of VimpelCom's purchase of Ukrainian Radio Systems.
Telenor insisted on the budget being divided into three parts - Russian, Ukrainian and that of the CIS - whereas VimpelCom management wanted the budget adopted as a whole.
The VimpelCom board will reconsider the budget in March-April, CEO Alexander Izosimov told a news conference after today's board session.
Telenor earlier filed three lawsuits with the Moscow Arbitration Court, challenging VimpelCom's deal to purchase Ukraine's Radio Systems mobile phone provider. At the same time, Altimo said it intended to sue Telenor representatives sitting on the VimpelCom board.
VimpelCom signed a $231 million deal to purchase Ukrainian Radio Systems in November 2005. Telenor was against the deal from the very start, saying the price was too high. Telenor's executives blocked the deal twice with the VimpelCom board. Later, EcoTelecom, a subsidiary of Alfa Group called an extraordinary shareholders' meeting in September of last year to approve the deal.
Altimo and Telenor also have stakes in Ukrainian mobile phone operator Kyivstar.
