The Russian state made a disastrous mistake in the mid-1990s selling control of big natural resources companies for peanuts. Now it is compounding the error by buying back a key part of the portfolio - 72 per cent of the Sibneft oil group - for $13bn (£7.4bn).

At least, Boris Yeltsin, former president, has some justification for the decisions he took a decade ago: the Kremlin was weak and the government nearly bankrupt. Moreover, the reformers believed, with some cause, that pushing assets out of state control and into private hands was paramount, lest resurgent Communists reverse market reforms and restore central planning.