The French energy company TotalEnergies supplies fuel to Russian fighters bombing Ukraine, and the company’s directors still sit on the board of the Russian company Novatek, reports the daily Le Monde.
TotalEnergies is the only French energy company to continue its operations in Russia. Together with his partner, Novatek, he exploits gas deposits and makes money by selling gas condensate, which, after processing, is used as a fuel component for Russian planes bombing Ukraine – says “Le Monde”.
The field’s operator is Tierneftegaz. In 49 percent. the field belongs to TotalEnergies, and 51 percent. to Novatek – gives the journal.
Le Monde has traced the supply chain that leads from the Tiermokarstovoye gas field in Siberia to two military aviation bases (Morozovskaya and Malczewo) where squadrons of multi-role combat aircraft are stationed, which are accused by international NGOs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch of hitting the Ukrainian civilian population, in particular the bombing of the Mariupol theater, which resulted in the death of up to 800 people.
A week after the Mariupol massacre, TotalEnergies continued to supply the refinery that sends fuel to the Morozovskaya base, “Le Monde” emphasizes.
The Malczewo Air Base obtains crude oil from the Omsk refinery, which was supplied with gas condensate from Tiermokarstovoye from April 18 to June 19. Squadron SU-34 from Malczewo was used by Russian forces to bomb Kharkiv and its region, the newspaper reports, citing the findings of the Refinitiv website.
“For months we have been warning companies that by purchasing this fuel they finance the murders of Ukrainian civilians,” Oleh Ustenko, economic adviser to the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, told Le Monde.
At the end of July, TotalEnergies announced that it had achieved a record profit of $ 5.7 billion in the second quarter of 2022, two and a half times the same period in 2021.
“I cannot imagine that TotalEnergies shareholders would give their CEO a mandate to continue operating in Russia while the country commits war crimes in Ukraine.” – underlines Ustenko.
“Our partner in Russia is a private company. If it were related to the Russian state, our analysis would certainly be different” – explained Patrick Pouyanne, director general of TotalEnergies, in an interview for the daily “Ouest-France” on June 15.
There are still three French members on Novatek’s supervisory board, including the two directors of TotalEnergies and Emmanuel Quidet, founder and current president of the French-Russian Chamber of Commerce, “Le Monde” reports.