Russia: No bottom to the well

Nationalising banks isn’t an option for the Russian government: it already owns the country’s largest institutions, plus a string of smaller ones. But the global liquidity freeze has hit the country’s banks hard, amplified over the summer by capital flight from foreign investors who fear the Kremlin’s unpredictability. Russian bourses have lost more than two thirds of their value since their highs in May. The Russian government has sunk tens of billions of public money and foreign reserves to bo...