By Julia Payne and Giuseppe Fonte LONDON/ROME/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Lukoil has sold its Italian refinery to a consortium of Western private equity and trading firms in the first major asset sale since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the companies said on Monday. Since its inception following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Lukoil had been one of the most active western asset-buyers of Russian companies, but these overseas assets became problematic after the West imposed broad sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The sale of the plant to a consortium, led by Cy…