UK’s ‘Lousy’ Decision To Loosen Russian Sanctions Might Not Reduce Oil Prices | Leigh Turner

Ajouté : 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]It does send a pretty lousy signal from from the UK, which has been such a strong supporter of sanctions on Ukraine. And next time that we're criticizing the US or India or China or Turkey or some other country that does not impose strict sanctions on Russia, it's going to be very difficult for us to take the moral high ground.

[00:00:22]>> And it's fair to say that, as we were talking about before the break there, many, many of you are expressing your shock, anger, frustration, and shame, actually, at the government's decision to loosen sanctions on Russian oil and gas. The UK will now allow the import of some liquefied natural gas directly from Russia and the import of jet fuel and diesel, which is refined from crude oil originally drilled in Russia. Will Lead Turner is a former British ambassador to Ukraine and the author of lessons in diplomacy, politics, power, and parties and joins us now. Good morning. Morning.

[00:00:53]What is your reaction to what the government has chosen to do overnight?

[00:00:57]Well, I I don't like it. I've got to be honest. Um this is making it easier to import jet fuel and diesel refined from Russian crude, so Russian crude oil exports in third countries like India.

[00:01:10]And as you've just mentioned, an easing of controls on imports of LNG from Russia. And you can see the logic that we're afraid of rising prices, we're afraid of shortages caused by the US war on Iran and the closure of the Straits of Hormuz.

[00:01:26]But, will it work? And what kind of signal does it send? Will it actually reduce prices and ease shortages? I'm not at all sure. And it certainly sends a very bad signal. It's a really interesting question about whether it will actually reduce prices, but the the diplomatic signal is something that our Ukrainian guest picked up on before. The idea that this is not just a morally questionable decision in the view in the minds of our listeners, but also a strategic mistake because it sends a certain signal to Russia and potentially to Iran.

[00:02:01]Well, one person who will be very pleased with this decision is Vladimir Putin.

[00:02:05]It really there's a there's a whiff of panic about it. The UK has up to now, since 2014 and particularly since 2022, been the full-scale Russian invasion, of course, started of Ukraine started in 2022.

[00:02:22]The UK has been a strong supporter of Ukraine and a strong supporter of sanctions on Russia.

[00:02:29]And what it looks like when we take a measure of this kind is that first of all, we, the UK, are prepared to ease sanctions if they're hurting us too much. Secondly, there are limits to our support for Ukraine if it gets too too hot for us. And thirdly, that our principles of supporting Ukraine aren't absolute. And those are three pretty lousy messages for the British government to be sending. And it seems particularly unfortunate when Ukraine has been doing rather well on the military and economic front over the last couple of months and has been attacking Russian energy exports across the whole of Russia. They've been sending these long-range drones as far away as places like Perm, which are well on the other side of Moscow. And Russia is hurting. And then all of a sudden, we do this. And I fear that although you can see why the government's doing it, actually it's a counterproductive move.

[00:03:35]Just finally, how do you think it will be interpreted by those inside Ukraine?

[00:03:39]I know that you know you know people there very well. What do you think that President Zelenskyy will make of this decision?

[00:03:44]Well, of course President Zelenskyy will be very disappointed with this move and most Ukrainians who, to be honest, are very grateful for support from the UK, will be scratching their heads and saying, "What on earth is this about?"

[00:04:00]I suppose, if we want to look on the bright side, we shouldn't exaggerate the impact of this. Um, if we didn't buy the Russian oil and gas products, somebody else would probably buy them, but it does send a pretty lousy signal from from the UK, which has been such a strong supporter of sanctions on Ukraine. And next time that we are criticizing the US or India or China or Turkey or some other country that does not impose strict sanctions on Russia, it's going to be very difficult for us to take the moral high ground.

[00:04:35]Lee Turner, former British ambassador to Ukraine, thank you very much.

[00:04:40]Uh, I know people there in number 10 do listen to this program. I just want to say, if you are listening, we've been doing this program for nearly 6 years. I cannot think of another decision by any of the governments we've covered that has produced this visceral response from our listeners as we've just had over the last hour and a half.

[00:04:56]I mean, it's it's literally you can't keep up with them. There's just hundreds coming in. Um, just Sylvia, "Shameful, craven. I feel helpless. I've been shivering in my cottage from lack of oil, but I'm willing to continue for the sake of decency." Uh, the government has lost its sense of decency is the message we're getting. And it's it's it's constant, isn't it, Kate? It's this sort of constant stream of people saying, "Not in my name," effectively. Yeah.

[00:05:17]Um, want to talk about Kemi Badenoch with Lee Cain, who's the former director of communications for Boris Johnson, uh, who joins us in the studio. Morning, Lee. Good morning. Before we get to Kemi Badenoch, I'm just interested in your thoughts as a as a a comms guy for a government.

[00:05:29]Does this feel like a a sustainable position for a government to say, "Oh, we're going to release," having spent months and months and months about the moral need to stand up for Ukraine, to to to loosen sanctions on Russia like this?

[00:05:41]Uh, I think it's it's it's very difficult. And as you mentioned, you know, public opinion is the big driver of uh, political decision-making. and if that pressure increases we could well see another government U-turn ahead. I will also predict that Kemi Badenoch will stand up at PMQs today and she will try and administer a firm kick to the behind of the Prime Minister on this issue. This is going to be a really We've had Andrew Griffith for the Tories on already using words like disgusted, shameful, all of that stuff echoing many of the opinions of our our listeners.

[00:06:13]Kemi Badenoch is likely to have a very good PMQs in in 4 hours time.

[00:06:18]Is that not important to you?

[00:06:19]I think Kemi Badenoch has had quite a few good PMQs and I think certainly we've seen the research we did my company Charles Bean Merlin strategy around the field pre-local elections looking at okay, what are the causes of our political issues at the moment? What do people think? Why do they think it?

[00:06:38]And we can see that there is some popularity for Kemi. It's certainly feeding into people seeing some intelligence seeing the leader. I think the point that I made in the piece I wrote for Conservative Home this week is that it's having absolutely no impact on the conservative brand and actually when you look at the data and the metrics you see in the focus groups you know, the Conservative Party themselves are going backwards and I think that's the that's the big concern. You know, you look at lost you know, more than 500 seats, they lost eight councils.

[00:07:06]If you look at that sort of projected vote share that'd be under 100 seats in Parliament in another election. So that's another drop of nearly 30 seats polling lower than Liz Truss. So you know, we look at this sort of Kemi bounce narrative that's happening and I think you know, this isn't to attack Kemi personally. It's a sort of point of actually the party's going in the wrong direction and if they buy into this narrative of a Kemi bounce, I think it's going to going to get worse for them and they're going to be in a situation where Reform have totally taken the space that the Conservatives used to hold.

[00:08:01]>> Mhm.