Russia’s government has pushed the country into an economic crisis by not tackling its financial problems fast enough, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin said yesterday, as evidence mounted of trouble spreading through the economy.

As he spoke President Vladimir Putin prepared to hold emergency talks with Western leaders to try to resolve the stand-off over Ukraine, the central bank bailed out its first victim of the collapsing currency and authorities announced a tax on grain exports to protect domestic stocks.

Russia has been hit by what Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev recently called a “perfect storm” of plummeting oil prices, sanctions related to its military action in Ukraine and a flight of investors’ capital – made worse by a lack of structural reforms that means the economy is overwhelmingly dependent on oil revenues.

Government officials have tried to minimise the impact of sanctions on the country and its rouble currency, which plunged 80 per cent against the dollar last week despite a hike in interest rates to 17 per cent. Putin has claimed “external factors” like oil were the key culprit behind the country’s “tough times”.

But Kudrin – a darling of investors who is credited with building Russia’s $170 billion sovereign wealth funds – asserted that sanctions over Ukraine, not falling oil prices, were primarily behind the collapse of the rouble, and warned that Russia risked having its debt downgraded to junk status in 2015.

“Today, I can say that we have entered or are entering a real, full-fledged economic crisis. Next year we will feel it clearly,” the former minister said. “The government has not been quick enough to address the situation... ”

Kudrin quit in 2011 in protest at proposals to increase defence spending, though he and Putin are still believed to be close. He has also criticised Putin’s response to Western sanctions imposed following Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and its subsequent support for loyalist fighters.