标签： Europe

LONDON – In an unannounced policy shift aimed at insulating British households from skyrocketing living costs driven by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the British government has relaxed key sanctions targeting Russian crude oil, official documents confirm. A new trade authorization that went into force Wednesday explicitly allows imports of Russian-origin oil that has been processed into jet fuel and diesel in third-party countries including India and Turkey, a carve-out not permitted under the original sanctions regime implemented after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The policy change comes amid a global energy market upheaval triggered by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical maritime chokepoint that typically carries roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil supplies. The closure, which followed the escalation of U.S.-Israeli military action against Iran, has sent global fuel prices into a sharp upward spiral and stoked widespread fears of imminent jet fuel shortages across Europe, including the U.K.

U.K. Treasury officials have framed the adjustment as a narrow, temporary measure. “These changes are for a time limited period and on a very specific issue,” said Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson, emphasizing that the government’s broader commitment to harsh sanctions on Moscow remains unchanged. Britain has positioned itself as one of Ukraine’s most steadfast military and political allies since the 2022 invasion, and the government continues to assert that its Russia sanctions are among the strictest enforced by any Western economy.

But the move has already drawn sharp criticism from cross-party political figures, who warn it will undermine the global pressure campaign to weaken Russia’s war economy. Emily Thornberry, chair of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that the reversal would leave Ukrainians feeling betrayed. “Ukraine’s allies should keep squeezing Russia’s oil industry, because it is absolutely crippling their economy,” Thornberry said.

The U.K.’s policy shift aligns with a similar easing of sanctions by the United States, which earlier this week extended a 30-day sanctions exemption that allows U.S. entities to facilitate purchases of Russian oil cargoes already en route by sea. The coordination between the two countries on easing comes even as Western powers publicly reaffirm their commitment to maintaining pressure on Russia. On Tuesday, finance ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy nations, which includes both the U.S. and the U.K., released a joint statement reaffirming “our unwavering commitment to continue to impose severe costs on Russia in response to its continued aggression against Ukraine.”

The dual messaging – public commitments to harsh sanctions paired with quiet adjustments to soften energy trade rules – underscores the growing tension Western governments face between sustaining their campaign against Russia and avoiding domestic political backlash from surging energy costs for consumers.

Against a backdrop of soaring fuel prices and growing global energy supply uncertainty triggered by tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, the UK government has rolled back a set of strict sanctions targeting Russian crude refined into diesel and jet fuel in third-party nations. The temporary waiver, which took effect on Wednesday, also rolls back some restrictions on the maritime transportation of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), marking a sharp shift from the UK’s long-standing stance as a leader of international economic pressure on Moscow over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The policy adjustment comes just one day after the UK joined a G7 statement reaffirming its unwavering commitment to imposing severe economic costs on Russia, and just months after London announced plans to fully ban imports of Russian-origin refined oil products processed in third countries. The revised sanctions framework will remain in place indefinitely, with periodic reviews to adjust or revoke the waiver as needed. The temporary LNG transportation licence, by contrast, is time-limited, expiring on January 1 next year.

Officials frame the move as a targeted, necessary adjustment to protect domestic energy security amid growing supply disruptions tied to the Israel-Iran conflict that has choked the critical Strait of Hormuz shipping lane. “This small and specific change is designed to protect the security of supply for foundational goods that our economy depends on, like jet fuel,” Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson told BBC Breakfast. “We remain fully committed to supporting Ukraine, but we have to make sensible decisions for British families struggling with the cost of living crisis.”

The change will effectively reopen UK markets to jet fuel refined in major processing hubs like India and Turkey, both of which import large volumes of Russian crude for refining. Supply disruptions have sent global jet fuel prices soaring: prices more than doubled immediately after the outbreak of the latest Middle East conflict, and remain 50 percent higher than pre-crisis levels. Domestically, UK petrol prices hit a new post-2022 war high of 158.52 pence per litre for unleaded fuel as of Monday, according to motoring organisation the RAC, and multiple international airlines have been forced to cancel flights and raise ticket prices to offset sky-high jet fuel costs.

But the policy shift has drawn fierce criticism from across the political spectrum and from international allies. Opposition foreign affairs committee chair Dame Emily Thornberry said Ukrainian officials had expressed deep disappointment with the move overnight, noting that Ukraine has long looked to the UK as one of its most steadfast allies. “Just because other countries are making the wrong choice does not mean we have to follow them,” Thornberry said, pushing back on the argument that the UK was aligning with existing policy changes from the US and Spain. Even senior Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch condemned the move, pointing out that “after 18 months of standing up to Putin, the government has quietly issued a licence allowing imports of Russian refined oil” – a contradiction, she argued, after the recent parliamentary vote against new domestic North Sea oil and gas drilling that leaves the UK importing Russian energy instead of producing it at home.

Energy experts have also questioned the necessity and impact of the waiver. Robin Mills, chief executive of Dubai-based energy consultancy Qamar Energy, told the BBC that the adjustment is unlikely to bring down domestic fuel prices and sends a damaging message that Western sanctions on Russia can be eroded by regional crises. “There was never any real prospect of a physical jet fuel shortage in the UK,” Mills argued. “This measure is unnecessary, it won’t lower prices, and it undermines the entire sanctions framework.”

The UK’s move follows a similar adjustment from the United States, which extended a waiver first introduced in March that allows trade in Russian oil already loaded onto vessels at sea. US officials have framed that policy as a short-term measure to keep global energy markets stable, but it has drawn widespread pushback from European allies. French President Emmanuel Macron has explicitly stated that the Strait of Hormuz tensions do not justify rolling back sanctions on Russia, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly emphasized that “every dollar paid for Russian oil is money for the war.”

UK officials have pushed back against criticism, stressing that the overall sanctions regime against Russia has actually been tightened in recent weeks. A government spokesperson noted that the UK has introduced a new wave of restrictions, including bans on Russian uranium trade and new maritime service restrictions that will progressively cut off Russian LNG from UK shipping and insurance services. “Our support for Ukraine is unwavering,” the spokesperson said. “These additional sanctions will further cut Russian revenues and degrade its ability to wage Putin’s illegal war.”

A scheduled two-day bilateral working visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Oslo, Norway this week has ignited a heated cross-border dispute after a local journalist posed unscripted, critical questions to the Indian leader, triggering backlash from Indian social media users and official pushback from New Delhi.

The incident unfolded following a joint press appearance between Modi and his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Støre, an event where both leaders had pre-confirmed they would not field questions from reporters. As the two prime ministers exited the stage, veteran Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng called out repeatedly to Modi, asking why he refused to engage with the press and challenging him to respond to questions about alleged human rights violations in India. Modi did not offer a response to Lyng’s questions, and security personnel later intervened to stop her from asking follow-up questions as the prime minister departed.

Lyng, a political correspondent for multiple Norwegian national outlets, later shared video footage of the exchange on social platform X, alongside posts raising concerns about declining press freedom and human rights standards in India. She told BBC Hindi in a post-incident interview that she saw the questions as a core part of her professional duty, noting that Modi’s long-standing pattern of avoiding unscripted press engagement left few other opportunities to raise issues of public interest. “That’s how confrontational journalism works. You have to try to interrupt, you have to try to get the answers you are looking for,” she explained, adding that her questions were based on reporting from what she called trusted global sources including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Within hours of the incident going viral online, Lyng faced widespread harassment and trolling from Indian social media users. Many accused her of acting as a “foreign plant” or spy, framing her questions as a deliberate attempt to embarrass India on the international stage. Several prominent Indian news outlets also criticized her approach, arguing that confronting a visiting head of state in that manner violated basic standards of diplomatic respect.

The official Indian response came shortly after the exchange, when the Indian Embassy in Norway publicly responded to Lyng’s social media post inviting her to raise her questions at a scheduled evening press briefing with senior Indian diplomats. At the briefing, Lyng repeated her core question: “Why should we trust you (India)? Can you try to stop the human rights violations that goes on in your country?”

Senior Indian diplomat Sibi George flatly rejected the allegations, pushing back strongly against the framing of Lyng’s question. He emphasized that India’s constitution explicitly enshrines democratic protections, including freedoms of thought, expression, belief, and worship for all citizens. He also criticized foreign critics for relying on what he called inaccurate reports from uninformed non-governmental organizations, noting “People have no understanding of the scale of India. They read one or two reports published by some God-forsaken, ignorant NGOs and then come and ask questions. Don’t worry about it. We are proud to be a democracy; we are a democratic society for centuries.”

This incident is not an isolated case: earlier in the same European trip, two Dutch journalists raised similar questions about minority rights and press freedom in India during Modi’s visit to the Netherlands, prompting an identical rebuttal from George.

The dispute comes against a backdrop of growing international scrutiny of press freedom in India. Last month, global press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders released its annual World Press Freedom Index, which ranked India 157th out of 180 assessed countries. Norway, by contrast, has held the top spot on the index for multiple consecutive years, reinforcing its global reputation as a defender of aggressive independent journalism.

Modi, who has led India as prime minister since 2014, has never held a traditional solo press conference since taking office, and has rarely taken unscripted questions from journalists during domestic or international visits. This pattern has long drawn criticism from press freedom advocates, who argue it reduces transparency and accountability for the Indian government.

In a highly charged diplomatic development, Jeff Landry, the dual-role Louisiana Governor and special Greenland envoy appointed by former (as of 2026) US President Donald Trump, has touched off widespread controversy after launching his first official visit to the semi-autonomous Danish territory in the Arctic, despite arriving without an official government invitation. The visit comes in the wake of a major international crisis that erupted when Trump publicly threatened to seize Greenland by force over its strategic significance to US national security, placing the Arctic island at the center of a lingering high-stakes dispute between Washington, Copenhagen and Nuuk.

Upon disembarking from an official US government aircraft in Greenland’s capital Nuuk on Monday, Landry framed his trip as a purely constructive outreach mission. “I’m here simply to build relationships, to look, to listen and to learn,” he told assembled reporters, adding that Trump had personally instructed him to “go over there, and make a bunch of friends.” Landry’s itinerary includes participation in the “Future Greenland” business summit, a meeting with local business and community leaders, and the Thursday opening of a new US consulate building in central Nuuk. He is accompanied by a small delegation, including a US physician who told Danish broadcaster TV2 he had volunteered to evaluate local medical needs — a move Greenlandic Health Minister Anna Wangenheim has already decried as “deeply problematic.” This proposed medical assessment follows a February 2026 announcement from Trump that the US would deploy a hospital ship to Greenland, an offer immediately and flatly rejected by Greenland’s elected leadership.

Far from the friendly outreach Landry has claimed, the visit has immediately reignited long-simmering anger and distrust among Greenlandic officials and residents, who have repeatedly drawn a hard red line against any US push to acquire the territory. Just hours after Landry’s arrival, Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen reaffirmed the island’s long-stated position in a press briefing: “We clearly reiterated that the people of Greenland are not for sale and that Greenlanders have the right to self-determination.” While Nielsen acknowledged the Monday meeting between Landry, US Ambassador to Denmark Ken Howery, and his team was conducted in a “good tone,” he stressed no parallel negotiations would proceed while top-level working group talks between the three governments remain ongoing.

Greenlandic Foreign Minister Mute Egede doubled down on the government’s stance, telling Agence France-Presse that Washington has not abandoned its territorial goals. “We have our red line. The Americans’ starting point has not changed either,” he said. For many ordinary Greenlanders and public figures, the timing of the visit — coming just four months after mass protests in Nuuk against Trump’s territorial claims — is seen as deeply inappropriate. Maliina Abelsen, a Greenlandic businesswoman and former politician who declined Landry’s meeting invitation, argued that the envoy should have waited until tensions cooled significantly. “It’s only four months ago that we felt very threatened by the US, so the timing is not appropriate,” she said, criticizing the visit as an attempt to bypass established diplomatic protocols. Aqqaluk Lynge, an Inuit author and former president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, noted that the crisis has frayed longstanding positive ties between Greenland and the US. “There is so much distrust now,” he said. “The sad thing is we have had a beautiful relationship with the people in the US, especially with the indigenous people.”

During comments to reporters at the “Future Greenland” summit on Tuesday, Landry defended the Trump administration’s approach, claiming that prior US governments had completely overlooked the Arctic territory. “Before Donald Trump, the United States was ignoring Greenland,” he said. “When was the last time that any high-level diplomats came to Greenland? Who cares more about Greenlanders than the Trump administration and the president? Because seemingly before the president, no one cared. Greenland didn’t exist, until Donald Trump put it on the map.” When asked directly whether Trump still holds the goal of absorbing Greenland into the US, Landry deflected, telling the BBC: “You’ll have to talk to the president yourself.”

Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, a senior researcher of American foreign policy at the Danish Institute of International Studies, characterized Landry’s conciliatory public tone as a deliberate tactical shift from the Trump administration’s earlier open coercion. “I think it’s a change in tactics,” he explained. “The approach now is to try and befriend people, rather than coerce them.”

The upcoming consulate opening has already become a flashpoint for criticism: the modern central Nuuk high-rise that houses the facility has already been nicknamed “Trump Towers” by local residents, and multiple high-profile Greenlandic politicians have said they will boycott the event. Naaja H. Nathanielsen, a Greenlandic MP and former business minister who will skip the opening, argued that Landry’s underlying mission remains unchanged. “Landry is tasked to help the president acquire Greenland. That is a reason why he’s here to ‘listen’ and visit, and that in itself is, I think, still very serious.”

To date, the three-nation working group established after Trump walked back his threat of military force has not reached a final resolution to the dispute. While public tensions have eased slightly in recent months, multiple reports have confirmed the US continues to push for expanded military access to the strategically located Arctic territory, leaving the core dispute unresolved and local populations on edge.

Amid growing transatlantic unease over shifting U.S. security commitments and unpredictable leadership from the Trump administration, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to depart this week for a critical NATO foreign ministers gathering in Helsingborg, Sweden. The high-stakes meeting comes as the alliance navigates cascading global crises: ongoing fallout from the Iran war, skyrocketing global energy prices, and deepening uncertainty over Washington’s long-term commitment to collective European defense. This gathering also marks one of the final senior-level diplomatic gatherings ahead of NATO’s full leadership summit scheduled for July in Ankara, Turkey.

Following the Sweden talks, Rubio will embark on a multi-stop tour of India, where he will visit Kolkata, Agra, Jaipur, and New Delhi. In the Indian capital, he is slated to hold bilateral talks with senior Indian government officials and join a gathering of foreign ministers from the Quad, the four-nation Indo-Pacific democratic grouping that also includes Australia, India, and Japan.

In a formal statement released this week, the State Department outlined that Rubio will reiterate longstanding U.S. demands at the NATO meeting: pushing alliance members to boost their national defense spending and take on a larger share of the collective security burden for the bloc. He will also prioritize discussions of Arctic strategy, holding targeted talks with NATO’s Arctic member states to align on shared economic and security interests in the region and reinforce the alliance’s enhanced military posture in the High North.

While the State Department’s statement did not explicitly reference Greenland, the strategically positioned autonomous Danish territory has emerged as a new source of transatlantic friction, after Donald Trump repeatedly drawn international backlash for his open discussion of seeking to acquire the territory for the United States. This week, Trump’s special Greenland envoy, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, traveled to the island for talks with local leadership. Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told Danish broadcaster TV 2 after the meeting that while the discussion was respectful and constructive, he made clear that Greenland’s people are committed to full self-determination. “The Greenlandic people are not for sale. Greenlandic self-determination is not something that can be negotiated,” Nielsen said.

For European allies who have grown increasingly uneasy with Trump’s confrontational approach to the alliance, Rubio’s presence at the gathering is widely seen as a reassuring constant. The secretary of state, known for a less antagonistic style and measured demeanor compared to the president, has been tapped for multiple high-profile transatlantic diplomatic missions this year alone. These included a trip to February’s Munich Security Conference, and a recent visit to Italy where he met with Italian leaders and Pope Francis, shortly after Trump publicly criticized the pontiff over his positions on the Iran war and transnational crime.

In comments ahead of the ministers’ meeting, NATO’s top serving military officer offered partial reassure to anxious allies on Tuesday. U.S. Lieutenant General Alex Grynkewich stated he does not anticipate additional American troop drawdowns in Europe in the near term, beyond the 5,000 troops that Trump previously announced would withdraw from the continent. Grynkewich’s remarks followed Trump’s surprise announcement of the drawdown earlier this month, which caught alliance leadership off guard despite longstanding U.S. pledges to coordinate all major military moves with NATO allies to avoid creating gaps in regional security.

The Pentagon later clarified that the drawdown will be implemented by canceling planned rotating deployments to Poland and Germany, rather than withdrawing thousands of active-duty troops already stationed on the continent. Tensions have run particularly high between Trump and German leadership recently, after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz stated that the United States was being “humiliated” by Iranian leadership and publicly criticized what he called the Trump administration’s “lack of a coherent strategy” for the ongoing Iran war.

Lorne Cook contributed reporting to this article from Brussels, Belgium.