KIEV, September 19 (RIA Novosti) - Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky said he had given "only ideological aid" to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, the Segodnya daily reported Monday.

Berezovsky called reports that he demanded $4 billion from the Ukrainian leadership as compensation for financial assistance to Yushchenko's presidential campaign "absolute nonsense".

He said that he only had telephone contact with Yushchenko during last year's campaign.

"I met him [Yushchenko] once in Kiev in 1999," Berezovsky said.

Berezovsky said he had advised Yushchenko not to quit the election campaign while Yushchenko was undergoing treatment at an Austrian clinic, reminding him of former Russian Boris Yeltsin who had run for president in 1996 after a heart attack.

Former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk said Sept. 14 that Berezovsky had told him on the phone that he had allocated $15 million to Yushchenko's election campaign.

On Sept. 15, Yushchenko said his campaign had been financed by the country's election fund and he had not asked Berezovsky, or any other businessman, for money.