„Deal mit dem Teufel“: Britische Schiffe helfen Putin, monatlich 700 Millionen Pfund aufzubringen, um seinen Krieg zu finanzieren

Full Exclusive article: British firms are helping [Vladimir Putin](https://inews.co.uk/opinion/putin-not-hiding-threat-britain-still-in-denial-4479926?ico=in-line_link) rake in more than £700m a month to fund his war by assisting Russian gas shipments heading to and from Europe and Asia, *The i Paper* can reveal.

Ministers last month unveiled measures designed to crack down on the trade, banning UK companies from providing services such as icebreaker tankers and insurance for Russian LNG exports in a bid to stop funding Putin’s war machine.

But an exemption until next January will permit UK support for shipments from Russia’s two biggest LNG production facilities – Yamal LNG and Sakhalin-2 – allowing the Kremlin to make billions from fossil fuel exports in the coming months, campaigners and politicians have warned.

As the [UK grapples with fuel supply issues caused by the Iran war](https://inews.co.uk/news/petrol-could-drop-fortnight-trumps-deal-holds-4478435?ico=in-line_link), officials and industry insiders accuse the Government of having “opened the door for Russia to fund its war economy” in its efforts to avoid a supply shock to Europe.

According to one estimate, British-owned or insured vessels have facilitated 76 per cent of Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) exports since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

And data shared with *The i Paper* suggests British participation in Russian shipments will see Moscow earn £714m a month for the next seven months. The trade remains entirely legal until the exemption expires.

The UK Government said its sanction measures were being phased in order to protect UK supply chains of oil and gas and “ensure market flexibility while increasing pressure on Russia”.

# A ‘loophole’ worth £5bn to Russian economy

Russia is estimated to have earned £931bn – more than the annual GDP of Switzerland – from oil and gas sales since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Fossil fuels are a vital source of income for the Kremlin, which Britain and its allies have repeatedly vowed to choke off with sanctions.

Defence sources said the trading “loophole”, which critics say ultimately allows Russia to help fund its war economy, stood in marked contrast to the alleged shortfall in the UK’s own defence spending, which last week led to the resignation of defence secretary John Healey.

In his resignation letter, the former defence secretary pointed out that Sir Keir Starmer had acknowledged intelligence assessments that Russia could attack Nato as soon as 2030 and Britain needs to be ready to confront such an attack.

One UK official said: “The irony will not be lost on people that the UK has put itself in a position where it has opened the door for Russia to fund its war economy with LNG sales while failing to adequately fund our own defence.”

Ross Greer, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, who has campaigned on the issue of UK companies facilitating Russian gas shipments, said: “We are very directly allowing Russia to make huge sums of money from this trade, money that is being spent on a total war economy.”

# Icebreaker fleet managed from Scottish industrial park

An investigation by *The i Paper* has found UK companies providing these services include a Glasgow-based shipping firm owned by a billionaire neighbour of US President Donald Trump, which oversees a fleet of icebreaking LNG tankers, and a series of specialist shipping insurers based in the City and Newcastle.

A significant proportion of the gas – worth an estimated £1.4bn over the next seven months – is likely to be carried to European ports by tankers operated by Seapeak Maritime (Glasgow) Ltd, a shipping company which manages a fleet of six icebreaker boats servicing the Yamal LNG facility in Siberia.

The firm is headquartered between a print works and a vehicle workshop on an industrial estate near the River Clyde. Its activities are entirely legal.

But campaigners said the Government exemption on shipping services was at risk of placing commercial interests above the UK’s efforts to drain the Kremlin’s war coffers.

Razom We Stand, a Ukrainian group which opposes Russia’s fossil fuel trade, pointed out that the UK exemption coincides with a huge windfall for Russian oil and gas sales in recent weeks caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), a climate think-tank, found Russia saw its oil and gas revenues increase by 52 per cent in the first month of the Iran war.

Svitlana Romanko, executive director of Razom We Stand, said the UK “cannot claim leadership on sanctions” while continuing to allow the trade.

“Loopholes like these undermine the purpose of sanctions and send a dangerous signal that commercial interests still outweigh the urgent need to cut the fossil fuel revenues helping to finance Russia’s war,” she added.

Isaac Levi, head of Europe-Russia policy at Crea, added: The UK must immediately close the loopholes that allow companies such as Seapeak to profit from this trade.”

# ‘Deal with the devil’

Shipping industry sources told *The i Paper* that restricting Russia’s gas and oil earnings had to be balanced with an “uncomfortable reality” of Europe still needing access to Russian fossil fuels.

While the EU has drastically reduced its reliance on Russian gas, it still depended on Moscow for about 12 per cent of its needs last year, much of it sourced from Yamal LNG. The Sakhalin-2 facility is used by Moscow to supply gas to countries including Japan and South Korea.

One senior energy shipping executive said: “It is the deal with the devil that has to be struck if we want to keep the lights on and the heating on.”

If Europe has a continuing need for Russian oil, it is being significantly supported from the banks of the Clyde, where Seapeak Maritime (Glasgow) Ltd has 115 staff based in its sleek offices.

The company manages seven tankers, six of them Arc-7 icebreaker vessels costing £235m a piece, which shuttle LNG from the Yamal facility in northwestern Siberia to European ports.

According to Crea analysis of shipping and energy data, Seapeak’s icebreakers transported nearly £13bn of Russian LNG in the three years from the Ukraine invasion to April last year – nearly a quarter of all Moscow’s exports since the start of the war.

Seapeak’s Glasgow operation is part of a complex corporate structure which stretches across the Atlantic to Vancouver in Canada, where the company’s owner Seapeak LLC, a global LNG shipping specialist, is based.

According to an analysis by Razom We Stand, Seapeak LLC generated revenues of £195m from its Russian LNG shipments in 2025.

The group said: “UK firms like Seapeak Maritime (Glasgow) Ltd underpin the backbone of Russia’s Arctic LNG logistics.”

# Seapeak and Trump’s billionaire neighbour

The Seapeak companies are owned by Stonepeak, a vast US-based private equity firm with assets worth nearly $90bn (£66bn) under its management.

The firm was co-founded and is headed by Michael Dorrell, a New York-based Australian, who is listed on Companies House as the ultimate owner of Seapeak’s Glasgow operation.

In 2024, Dorrell, whose personal wealth is put at about £6.5bn, spent $150m buying the only private island in Palm Beach, the Florida resort favoured by America’s super-rich and the location of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago luxury private club.

In a recent interview, Dorrell remarked that he can see Mar-a-Lago from his island mansion and attends the Trump venue “all the time”.

Seapeak did not respond to questions from *The i Paper* on its Russian operations. In its annual sustainability report, Seapeak LLC’s chief executive Mark Kremin said the company “remained focused on delivering essential energy safely, reliably and in a responsible manner”.

„Nothing personal, it’s just good business“.