On paper, Russia’s economy looks to be virtually bullet-proof. With a 7.5 per cent year-on-year growth rate in the second quarter, it has the third largest foreign exchange reserves in the world, low international debt, a huge resource-fuelled trade surplus and nearly $200bn (€141bn, £112bn) stashed away in sovereign wealth funds.

Seen from the markets, however, the situation looks anything but rosy. Stock market indices stand at less than half their May peak, billions of dollars of foreign capital has quit the country and credit has all but dried up. Efforts by the central bank to inject liquidity are having little effect. “What is happening is that no one is lending to each other,” says Garegin Tosunyan, head of the Association of Russian Banks. “This is not so much a financial crisis as a crisis of trust.”