Private investors extended $40 billion in loans to Ukraine during former president Viktor Yanukovych's tenure. These loans will be repaid step-by-step and the country's foreign debt will be reduced, said Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.

"Private lenders provided $40 billion in loans to Ukraine during those three years, and the world pledged to give us $25 billion during the following four years. Having received those loans we have repaid them to our lenders and managed to reduce the foreign debt in order not to shift the burden over to the next generations," Yatseniuk said on the "Ten Minutes with the Prime Minister" program, aired on Sunday.

Ukraine repaid $14 billion to foreign lenders in 2014 and borrowed a much smaller sum, he said. "We borrowed $9 billion and repaid $14 billion which we did not take, to our foreign lenders last year. Ex-president Yanukovych would borrow on a grand scale," Yatseniuk said.