How can Scotland help Ukraine? Shut down Seapeak

At a rally outside the American consulate in Edinburgh earlier this year, one Ukrainian girl held a sign reading ‘Today a missile strike killed my neighbour - because Russia is a terrorist state’.

We were there together, Ukrainians and Scots, to show our anger at Donald Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine.

I was hardly a supporter of US foreign policy under previous presidents - the genocide in Gaza will define Joe Biden’s place in history - but the grim significance of America’s newfound sympathy for Putin’s Russia cannot be overstated.

The Scottish and UK Governments have taken significant measures to cut off and sanction companies linked to Putin’s regime (compare and contrast that to their total inaction on continued trade with Israel). For reasons which are still unclear though, they have missed one of the key players in the Russian war economy, despite this particular company being based right here in Glasgow.

Last week I again joined Scotland’s Ukrainian community to speak at a protest against those responsible for the invasion of their nation. This time our target was that Glasgow-based company, Seapeak Maritime Ltd. 

It's from their headquarters just off Argyle Street and a second office in London that Seapeak owns and operates seven cargo ships used to export liquified natural gas (LNG) from Russia. These ships are critical to Putin’s war efforts.

I’m working with the Kyiv-based NGO Razom We Stand and Ukrainians in Scotland to shut down Seapeak. 

We believe their ships make up nearly half the total fleet used for exporting LNG from Russia’s Siberia region. These exports are worth an estimated £127million in direct tax revenue to the Kremlin and nearly £8 billion to the Russian economy each year. 

That’s money used to fund the bombs, the missiles, the drones, the hell raining down on the people of Ukraine.

Disrupting Russia’s fossil fuel exports is one of the most obvious ways we can support Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself.

The UK has already sanctioned more than a hundred ships involved in Russian exports, but for some reason Seapeak’s ice-breakers have not yet made the list. That’s despite them being owned and operated by a UK-based company. 

I wrote to Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds months ago, urging him to act. Unfortunately, the response I received (from a junior Foreign Office Minister) made it clear that they were not sanctioning Seapeak, but without one word of explanation as to why.

The timing couldn’t be more critical. Putin is doing all he can to take advantage of Trump’s ugly betrayal of the brave Ukrainian people earlier this year, his more recent delays to aid transfers and the fifty day reprieve from a new round of sanctions. 

The sanctions and other measures already put in place by the UK, EU and others are helpful, but three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and more than a decade on from their occupation of Crimea, I cannot understand why some of Putin’s key economic enablers are still allowed to operate freely from right here in Glasgow.

Shutting Seapeak down would have widespread public support and make a serious impact on Russia’s economy and its ability to wage war.

In Ukraine’s hour of need, we can leave no stone unturned in the support we provide.

Sign the public appeal against Seapeak to the UK Government here