Antonov, at a time when experts believe it should be focused on finally escaping its Soviet past, instead captured headlines in September when a president newly appointed by the Ministry of Industrial Planning summoned the police to try to force his way into the plant past employees who liked their current boss and wanted a voice in choosing any new leader.

In a management dispute worthy of “Alice in Wonderland,” the company maintains that the Ministry of Industrial Planning — its very name redolent of Soviet ways — cannot appoint a new president because the agency was abolished after the February revolution.

The government gave it three months from March to conclude its affairs, but Oleksandr F. Kalenkov, the acting minister, said last month that he needed up to a year to officially hand over the 140 or so companies it runs to the Ministry of Economy. He was removed from his post on Oct. 1. The confrontation now sits in Kiev District Administrative Court.

Asked about the dispute, Dmytro Shymkiv, appointed in July to coordinate all government reform efforts, consulted a list of ministries on his tablet. The Ministry of Industrial Planning no longer existed, he confirmed.

Mr. Shymkiv then conceded that there might be a gap between the decree and reality. “When you have a transformation like this in the country, you will have a lot of cases like this,” he said. He called Antonov too strategic to privatize.

Valeriy V. Migunov, a spry, 78-year-old retired test pilot, still acts as a consultant for Antonov. Wandering among the quiet flight simulators, he waxed nostalgic about past decades, starting in the 1960s, when Antonov’s first wide-bodied transport planes created global buzz.

“An ordinary company could not build such aircraft,” said Mr. Migunov, who was named a “Hero of the Soviet Union” in 1984. After some prodding, he acknowledged that he was having trouble accepting that Antonov was severing ties with Russia. “I feel a certain amount of personal discomfort,” he said.