“We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European,” a member of Trump’s team told The Wall Street Journal.

“We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine. And we are not paying for it. Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.”

The plan came as Putin spoke for the first time since Trump’s election victory.

Addressing the Valdai Discussion Club in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, Putin said he hoped to see his country’s relations with the US “restored” but that the ball was in Washington’s court.

Putin also said he was impressed by Mr Trump’s reaction during an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania in July. “He behaved, in my opinion, in a very correct way, courageously, like a real man,” Putin said.

Speaking later on Thursday, Mr Trump told NBC News that he had not yet spoken to Putin but that “I think we’ll speak”.

‘It’s not our children who are dying’

On Friday, George Osborne said it was not realistic for the UK to keep backing Ukraine without US support following Trump’s victory.

“Is it realistic to expect a complete victory for Ukraine, the complete ejection of Russia from Ukrainian territory? And if it’s not, you know, it may suit our vanity in the West to say ‘plucky Ukrainians’, [but] it’s not our children who are dying,” the former chancellor said.

“It’s also totally unrealistic, in my view, to think that Europe alone, including the UK, can go on supporting Ukraine without the support of the United States, even though Joe Biden actually is rushing to spend the $61 billion that Congress recently voted in terms of American aid for Ukraine before he leaves office.”