* Italian bank was adviser on Rosneft privatisation
* Moscow has long standing relationship with Italy
* Kremlin says Syrian war not part of talks with Qatar (Adds details, Kremlin quotes)
LONDON/MOSCOW, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Italian bank IntesaSanpaolo is expected to provide a large chunk of funds to aconsortium of Qatar and commodities trader Glencore to financetheir purchase of a stake in the Kremlin oil major Rosneft, twosources familiar with the transaction said.
Russia said on Wednesday it had sold a 19.5 percentgovernment stake in Rosneft for 10.5 billion euros($11.3 billion) to Qatar's sovereign wealth fund and Glencore.
Glencore said it would finance part of the deal by puttingup 300 million euros of its own equity, with the rest beingfinanced by the Qatar Investment Authority and by non-recoursebank financing.
QIA and Intesa declined to comment. Intesa was one of theadvisors to Rosneft on the privatisation.
The sale of Rosneft's stake, announced on Wednesday byRussian President Vladimir Putin and Rosneft's chief IgorSechin, confounded expectations that the Kremlin's standoff withthe West would scare off major investors.
The deal suggests the lure of taking a share in one of theworld's biggest oil companies outweighs the risks that come withWestern sanctions imposed on Russia over the conflict inUkraine.
"We have once again seen that Russian assets, especiallyleading assets, are of great interest for investors inside andoutside Russia," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The transaction pointed to a possible reassessment byforeign investors of the risks of dealing with Russia, at a timewhen the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president hasheightened expectations of a thaw between Moscow and Washington.
The deal was announced days after Russia and OPEC -dominated by Saudi Arabia and its allies Qatar, the UAE andKuwait - agreed to coordinated output cuts to support oilprices, the first time they have cut in tandem in 15 years.
State-owned Rosneft had kept the deal, which is meant tohelp Russia boost its budget revenues, a tightly-guarded secret.
The Italian government, banks and firms have long standingrelationships with Russia, although ties have cooled somewhatsince the times of former Italian Prime Minister SilvioBerlusconi, who called Putin a friend.
The involvement of Qatar in a Russian privatisation dealcomes as a surprise, especially given years of tensions overSyria, where Russia is effectively fighting a proxy war withSaudi Arabia and Qatar.
The Kremlin said on Thursday the Rosneft deal was purelycommercial and not political.
"There were not and there aren't any political aspectshere," Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, told reporters on aconference call when asked if any agreements on Syria were partof the talks.
The Kremlin was not involved in preparatory work on thedeal, which was handled personally by Rosneft chief Igor Sechinand his team, Peskov said. (Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov, Karin Strohecker, AndreaMandala and Maria Tsvetkova; Editing by Christian Lowe)