Parameter expansion stopped working after upgrade of sudo

Issue

After upgrade of sudo from version 1.7.2p1-10 to 1.7.2p1-14.3 the behaviour of parameter expansion has changed. See following reproducer:

user bob has a "~/.profile" containing line

export VARIABLE="This is bob"

user brian has a "~/.profile" containing line

export VARIABLE="This is brian"

User brian has proper permissions to execute apps using sudo as user bob.

With sudo 1.7.2p1-10

brian$ sudo -ui bob "echo $VARIABLE"
This is brian

brian$ sudo -ui bob "echo \$VARIABLE"
This is bob

With sudo 1.7.2p1-14.3

brian$ sudo -ui bob "echo $VARIABLE"
This is brian

brian$ sudo -ui bob "echo \$VARIABLE"
$VARIABLE

Instead of expanding the parameter sudo passes the literal '$VARIABLE' to echo statement.