Since the news first broke on late Friday afternoon, observers and oil obsessives have been scrambling all weekend to understand the meaning, precedent, and dimensions of BP’s announcement of its $7.8 billion tie up with the notorious Russian state-controlled oil company Rosneft.

In what has alternatively been heralded as a “pioneering” deal or a desperate gamble (The Daily Mail modestly describes it the “end of the British Empire“), Rosneft will take ownership of a 5% stake in BP, while the British will assume 9.5% of Rosneft.  The newly married companies will form a joint venture to explore three offshore blocks in the Arctic, and, while drilling is still years away, most analysts are viewing the deal as “good news” in the short term for the beleaguered BP.  But coming fresh on the heels of a U.S. government report on the catastrophic incompetence at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, combined with Rosneft’s notorious opacity and unlawful theft of Yukos assets, others are seeing the deal for what it truly is:  “BP and Russia have embraced each other like two drunks leaning together for support,” Ed Crooks and Catherine Belton write in the Financial Times.

American politicians on both sides of the aisle are none too pleased by the timing of the deal, with calls to review the security implications of BP’s new arrangement, and one congressman commenting that BP now stands for “Bolshoi Petroleum.”