As Europe’s stock markets recovered on Friday, Moscow’s continued their losing streak.

Investor sentiment was not helped by Russia’s finance minister telling parliament: “Our economy and our market is closely linked to the growing risks in the world economy and to falling oil prices.”

The RTS index is down by 73 percent since hitting an all time high in May and it fell 20 percent just this week.

The falls are partly due to the global financial market turmoil, but the conflict with Georgia also caused a flight of capital.

In response the authorities are taking a range of steps to prop up Russia’s financial system.

President Dmitry Medvedev said: “We have taken some important measures to stabilise the financial markets. We have also taken significant measures to protect depositors, the amount of state guaranteed insurance on bank deposits has been increased to 700,000 roubles. (19,700 euros)

Shares in state-owned banks continued to perform better than most on expectations of government support.

Russia has said it will spend up to 14 billion euros in state funds to support the share market.

Energy companies like Rosneft and Gazprom were among the biggest stock market losers.

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