The Russian government is throwing its full support behind Lukoil’s ambition to become the first big international energy group to develop a major Iraqi oil field following the 2003 US invasion.

Vagit Alekperov, Lukoil’s chief executive, said in an interview on Tuesday: “The Russian government supports us, the foreign ministry supports us, the president of the federation supports us. They support the idea of putting those Iraqi fields [into production] as soon as possible. In all these areas we have the support of the Russian government.”