Mr Victor Chernomyrdin, Russia's acting Prime Minister, yesterday held emergency talks with the International Monetary Fund as the rouble plummeted again on Moscow's currency market and the country's political crisis deepened.
Interfax news agency reported that Mr Chernomyrdin and Mr Camdessus had examined the situation on financial markets worldwide and in Russia.
The IMF was likely to agree to a renegotiation of the terms of its loan to the country in the aftermath of the rouble's devaluation, according to a senior US monetary policy maker.
Breaking off talks with parliamentary leaders in Moscow about the formation of a new government, Mr Chernomyrdin travelled to the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea to meet Michel Camdessus, the IMF's managing director. Mr Camdessus was in Crimea to discuss the regional economic turmoil with Mr Leonid Kuchma, president of Ukraine.
Russia appears desperate to accelerate the release of the next tranche of the IMF's $11.2 billion (£7.9 billion) support loan - due in September - before its hard currency reserves evaporate.
Analysts said a key question hanging over the market was whether or not the IMF would next month disburse the next instalment of the agreed loan. "Russia will now default on its external debt service unless it gets funding from the IMF," said Mr Richard Gray, emerging market analyst at Bank of America in London.
The Russian central bank yesterday suspended and then annulled all trades in US dollars on the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange after the rouble fell by 5 per cent. But trading continued in other currencies and the rouble lost 41 per cent of its value against the D-Mark, falling from 4.49 to 7.6, after the central bank indicated it would preserve its reserves and allow the currency to find its natural "floor".
Mr Chernomyrdin yesterday criticised the central bank for its handling of Russia's financial crisis. "Financial and economic policy is a question to which I am giving my attention minute-by-minute. I declare that I am extremely dissatisfied with the work of the central bank over the last two days," he said.
Mr William McDonough, the president of the New York Federal Reserve and a key figure in the international response to the Russian crisis, said "some tuning" of the IMF programme was "more likely than not". He said: "I'd be surprised if the IMF did not enter into new negotiations that could bring a modification of the fund programme."
Mr McDonough said the immediate economic effects of Russia's problems for the rest of the world should be limited. But he said the real risk was the psychological effect on other emerging markets, driven by investors' "irrational" fears of contagion.
Mr Theo Waigel, Germany's Finance Minister, appeared to rule out the possibility of additional foreign aid. "Russia must do it by itself," he said.
Mr David Riley, director of Fitch IBCA, said his credit rating agency had lowered its sovereign rating for Russia from B minus to CCC. That indicated Russia now ranked as the riskiest of the 60 countries covered by the agency, including Indonesia.
Russian dollar-denominated Prins, or restructured Soviet-era debt, were yesterday trading at little more than one-tenth of their face value. The RTS-IF index of leading shares fell by more than 13 per cent.
