“Just so you understand, Europe is loaning the money to Ukraine. They get their money back.” “Now, in fact to be frank, we paid. We paid 60 percent of the total defaults, and it was like the U.S. — loans, guarantee grants — and we provided real money, to be clear.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Moscow could not consider "any options" for European peacekeepers being sent to Ukraine and that the idea was aimed at fuelling the conflict and making it harder to de-escalate.

Russia rejected on Wednesday both freezing the front line in Ukraine in its current position and stationing European peacekeeping troops in the region, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. Earlier this week US President Donald Trump told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin would accept European troops in Ukraine to keep the peace.