The licence is of “indefinite duration”, according to the Department of Business and Trade website, and will be periodically reviewed.

The Labour government also issued a temporary licence loosening sanctions on liquefied natural gas originating from certain Russian plants.

The UK had announced in October it would ban imports derived from Russian crude, part of a push to cut off revenues funding Russia’s war in Ukraine.

But Starmer said the government was issuing “two targeted short-term licences to phase the new sanctions in and to protect UK consumers”.

“This is not a question of lifting existing sanctions in any way whatsoever, and we will continue to work with our allies on further sanction packages,” he said. Starmer told Zelensky that Britain is “ramping up measures to crack down on Russia’s economy including through the new package of sanctions”.

The British prime minister said this was part of an “ongoing commitment to do everything possible to debilitate and degrade (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war machine”, Downing Street said.

But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the prime minister of “choosing to buy dirty Russian oil. That money will be used to fund the killing of Ukrainian soldiers”.