Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev used a speech opening the St Petersburg economic forum on Friday to highlight the lurking problem of bad bank debt, saying that “it is too early to open the champagne bottles” and say the crisis is over.

Russian capital markets have been soaring, and Russian stock indices are up 85 per cent for the year, making Russia the best performing market in the world so far. But underlying economic damage is dire, and the International Monetary Fund predicts economic output to fall 6.5 per cent in 2009.