Russia's ex-finance chief predicts 'full-blown economic crisis' as Sberbank suspends loans

Russia's former finance minister Alexei Kudrin has said the country was in real trouble and will fall into recession in 2015.

"We are entering or have already entered a full-blown economic crisis and we're going to feel it to the full next year," he said.

The warning came after Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, announced it had suspended new requests from retail clients for loans on cars and mortgages until February, RIA news agency reported.

Meanwhile, Russia's central bank said it had bailed out the mid-range Trust Bank to the tune of 30bn rubles (£340m, $530m,) the first bailout in the country's currency crisis.

The Russian ruble has lost around 40% of its value since the summer, as falling oil prices have battered the country's export revenues.

The additional burden of economic sanctions imposed by the West has reduced Russian companies' access to global financial markets and could hamper growth in the long run.

Russia's state-run oil producer Rosneft, which has been subject to financial and technological sanctions from the US, has said its potential deal to buy an oil trading business from Morgan Stanley had been blocked by US regulators.

While Russia's central bank has already tried to stabilise the currency by hiking interest rates to 17%, it has so far failed to have the desired effect.

The Russian government has warned the economy is facing recession in 2015, predicting earlier this month it would contract by 0.8%.