The Kremlin yesterday continued to deny that it ordered a boycott by senior Russian officials and oligarchs of London's Russian Economic Forum, for years the premier Russian business conference. But Itar-Tass, the state-owned news agency, gave an account that betrayed official Moscow's attitude and could have come straight from the days when the agency was plain Tass, a Russian acronym for the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union.

"In recent years the Russian Economic Forum has lost its significance and is no longer a key event in defining economic co-operation between Russia and western capital," the news agency explained in a dispatch. Russia's internal markets, not the London markets, now played the decisive role in investment decisions in Russia. "And precisely because of this, it has become a logical step for the centre of gravity to shift from London to St Petersburg, where the St Petersburg Economic Forum will take place this summer."