Passing the point of no return

A SUPPLEMENT TO EUROMONEY – APRIL 1997

It was the perfect symbol of the new Russia. Last month president Boris Yeltsin appeared at the Helsinki summit looking fitter and more confident than he had done for months ­ an image reinforced by the contrast to Bill Clinton, who had been confined to a wheel-chair after a knee operation.

For most of the 1990s Russia has been the sick man of eastern Europe, weakened first by the loss of its satellite states in eastern Europe and then by the disintegration of the USSR.