One of Britain’s favourite dishes is under threat amid a Kremlin plan to rip up a decades-old agreement allowing UK ships to fish in Russia’s Arctic waters.
British vessels have been permitted to fish along the coast of the Russian Kola Peninsula in the Barents Sea and to east of Cape Kanin Nos for almost 70 years – even at the height of the Cold War.
A massive amount of cod and haddock sold in fish and chips shops across the country is traditionally sourced from these waters – according to UK Fisheries data, a whopping 566,784 tonnes of cod was scooped in the Barents Sea just last year alone. But now Vladimir Putin is said to have declared fishing war on the UK, with his government backing draft legislation that would see Russia pull out of the 1956 agreement and ban Britain from scooping its revered supply of cod and haddock.
It comes in response to Britain’s decision to slap Moscow with sanctions over the war in Ukraine, and could mean Russian navy warships being used to warn off UK vessels.
