'What happened in Irkutsk was a tremendous tragedy. Words fail me.' Picture: Kremlin.ru

This week's poisoning after people drank bath lotion or oil has now led to 75 deaths, with 19 people still requiring hospital treatment, said Irkutsk Region's Health Ministry spokeswoman Tatyana Lebedeva.

In his annual press conference in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin said: 'What happened in Irkutsk was a tremendous tragedy. Words fail me. Certainly this was an outrage because the inspectors and other agencies were supposed to prevent it, and didn't do so.'

He said that 'foreign' people were responsible for the abuse which involved methanol.

The government was raising excise on alcohol surrogates in an attempt to discourage people drinking these substitutes, and this risked damage to other industries, for example the perfume business.

'These actions are justifiable because of these tragedies,' he said.

But he ruled out a major crackdown on alcohol despite recognising Russia had a problem, although no worse than Nordic countries.

'We cannot simply ban things,' he said.