Are fish and chips at risk? Russia terminates fishing deal with UK as it tells Britons 'to lose weight'

Russia has terminated a longstanding fishing agreement with the UK, suggesting that Britons should "lose weight and get smarter". This decision annuls a 1956 pact permitting British fishing vessels access to the Barents Sea, marking a fresh escalation in the strained relations between Moscow and the West.

Originally endorsed by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Russian officials now argue that the accord was never in their nation's best interests. UK authorities however downplay the significance of this termination, stressing it will not materially affect their fish supplies, Sky News reported.

Russia's parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said: "The British need to study some proverbs - 'Russians harness the horse slowly, but ride it fast'." He told politicians that "the unscrupulous British" had eaten Russian fish for 68 years - declaring: "Now let them lose weight, get smarter."

He links this withdrawal from the fishing deal to recent UK sanctions on six people associated with the Arctic penal colony where Alexei Navalny, Russia's opposition leader and Vladimir Putin's fiercest critic, died last week.

Echoing Kremlin sentiments, Volodin also mourns the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, viewing it as a national tragedy. He aligns himself with Putin, asserting that under his leadership, Russia has regained its lost stature.

While reports suggest a significant portion of cod and haddock consumed in the UK originates from Russia and its territories, British officials stress that UK vessels do not operate in Russian waters directly, minimising the immediate impact of the agreement's termination on UK fish supplies.

Despite reassurances from industry figures like Andrew Crook, president of the National Federation of Fish Friers, there have been concerns within the Scottish fish and chip sector. While Scottish suppliers primarily rely on fish from the North Sea, there's also concern that the treaty's termination could prompt a surge in demand for local fish, potentially driving prices up.