Rarely does the head of a Wall Street bank send a public missive to a head of state. But in a recent letter, noted on the Kremlin’s website, Lloyd Blankfein, the Goldman Sachs chairman, asked to meet Vladimir Putin to discuss world economic trends.

For international banks, Russia’s growing clout is impossible not to notice. M&A activity is fast expanding out of the oil industry and reached a record $71bn last year, with more than $11bn spent by Russian companies on foreign acquisitions, according to Ernst and Young.