When President Putin ordered tanks to cross the border into Ukraine on February 24, Bernard Looney, the boss of BP, was already feeling the heat over the oil company’s dealings in Russia.
The British giant had a highly lucrative stake of almost 20 per cent in the state-controlled oil company Rosneft that was a remnant of its former joint venture with oligarchs in Russia. So on February 28, when the ethically minded Looney made BP the first big UK company to announce plans to offload its investment, he was applauded.
