MOSCOW, Jan 18 (Reuters) - The acquisition of a 19.5 percentstake in Russia's Rosneft oil firm was paid for byforeign companies, Tass news agency quoted Andrei Kostin, ChiefExecutive of Russian state lender VTB, as saying onWednesday.
Kostin declined to comment on what role VTB played in thetransaction, Tass reported. (Reporting by Alexander Winning; Writing by Christian Lowe;Editing by Maria Kiselyova)