VTB, the Russian bank, has sold its 5 per cent stake in EADS, the European defence group, to another Russian bank in a deal interpreted as a fresh attempt by the Kremlin to develop Russia’s aerospace industry.

VTB bought the stake in EADS, which owns Airbus, in August last year while the bank was still state-owned. It was privatised this year and investors started to complain that the EADS shares, bought at about €23 each, were losing value.

In VTB’s accounts, the stake was valued at $1.4 billion (£703 million) at the end of last year and at $1.24 billion in September. The bank has sold its 41 million shares to Russia’s Bank of Development, a state-owned body, at €24.23 - a premium on EADS’s Christmas Eve closing price of €22.56.

That will allow VTB to claim a profit on the shares of nearly $200 million, despite their market value having fallen since it bought them. It is thought that the Kremlin agreed to save VTB from investor pressure by arranging a transfer of the shares to another bank.

One aerospace analyst said: “Russia wants to keep the stake in EADS, but VTB was no longer the right place to hold it. The only way to make a profit on the sale of this stake was for the Russians to sell it to themselves.”

When VTB bought the shares, most analysts saw its move as an attempt by the Kremlin to buy into aerospace. Russia was once a leader in the sector, but a lack of investment after the fall of the Soviet Union meant that famous companies such as Sukhoi and Irkut could not compete with Airbus and Boeing.

The Kremlin is understood to have pressed EADS for a seat on the group’s board and was using its stake to seek technology-sharing partnerships and Airbus manufacturing work.

EADS refused to let Russia push it into outsourcing, but it is working with Irkut, in which it has a 10 per cent stake, to develop aerospace technologies. Boeing, Airbus’s rival, is working with Sukhoi to develop the Superjet 100, a small aircraft, but both Western aircraft manufacturers are wary of giving away too much technology to a nation keen to become a competitor.

Irkut and other Russian aerospace companies are being merged to form United Aircraft Corporation, which is expected to become the EADS shares’ owner.

Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, aims to list shares in London after the state-owned bank’s raising of $8.8 billion in a Russian flotation this year.

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